A short-term exposure limit (STEL) is the acceptable average exposure over a short period of time, usually 15 minutes as long as the time-weighted average is not exceeded. STEL is a term used in

exposure assessment Exposure assessment is a branch of environmental science, toxicology, epidemiology, environmental engineering, and occupational hygiene that focuses on the processes that take place at the interface between the environment containing the contam ...

occupational health Occupational safety and health (OSH) or occupational health and safety (OHS) is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at work (i.e., while performing duties required by one's occupation). OSH is re ...

industrial hygiene Occupational hygiene or industrial hygiene (IH) is the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, control, and confirmation (ARECC) of protection from risks associated with exposures to hazards in, or arising from, the workplace that may result in ...

and

toxicology Toxicology is a scientific discipline, overlapping with biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms and the practice of diagnosing and treating ex ...

. The STEL may be a

legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

limit in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

for exposure of an employee to a

chemical substance A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be com ...

. The

Occupational Safety and Health Administration The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA; ) is a regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. The United States Congress established ...

(U.S. OSHA) has set OSHA-STELs for

1,3-butadiene 1,3-Butadiene () is the organic compound with the formula CH2=CH-CH=CH2. It is a colorless gas that is easily condensed to a liquid. It is important industrially as a precursor to synthetic rubber. The molecule can be viewed as the union of two ...

benzene Benzene is an Organic compound, organic chemical compound with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar hexagonal Ring (chemistry), ring with one hyd ...

and

ethylene oxide Ethylene oxide is an organic compound with the chemical formula, formula . It is a cyclic ether and the simplest epoxide: a three-membered ring (chemistry), ring consisting of one oxygen atom and two carbon atoms. Ethylene oxide is a colorless ...

. For chemicals, STEL assessments are usually done for 15 minutes and expressed in

parts per million In science and engineering, the parts-per notation is a set of pseudo-units to describe the small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantity, dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction (chemistry), mass fraction. Since t ...

(ppm), or sometimes in

milligram The kilogram (also spelled kilogramme) is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand grams. It has the unit symbol kg. The word "kilogram" is formed from the combination of the metric prefix kilo- (m ...

s per cubic meter (mg/m³). The

American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) is a professional association of industrial hygienists and practitioners of related professions, with headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. One of its goals is to advance worker pr ...

publishes a more extensive list of STELs as threshold limit values (TLV-STEL). __TOC__

Similar national exposure limits

*United Kingdom **COSHH (''Control of Substances Hazardous to Health''). *Australia **OES Occupational Exposure StandardOES Occupational Exposure Standard
*France **VLEP 8h00 ('' Valeur Limite d’Exposition Professionnelle 8h00'') **VLEP CT ('' Valeur Limite d’Exposition Professionnelle Court Terme'') *Netherlands **MAC ('' Maximaal Aanvaarde Concentratie'') *Malaysia **PEL (''Permissible Exposure Limits'') *Poland **NDSCh ('' Najwyższe dopuszczalne stężenie chwilowe'') *Russia **ПДК ('' предельно допустимая концентрация'')

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Short-Term Exposure Limit Concentration indicators Industrial hygiene Occupational safety and health Toxicology

Similar national exposure limits

See also

Notes