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, occupational health, industrial hygiene and toxicology. The STEL may be a legal limit in the United States for exposure of an employee to a chemical substance. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (U.S. OSHA) has set OSHA-STELs for 1,3-butadiene, benzene and ethylene oxide. For chemicals, STEL assessments are usually done for 15 minutes and expressed in parts per million (ppm), or sometimes in milligrams per cubic meter (mg/m3).
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists publishes a more extensive list of STELs as threshold limit values (TLV-STEL).
Similar national exposure limits
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- OES Occupational Exposure Standard8
- 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)
See also
Notes
References
29CFR1910.1051 http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=10087 ↩
29CFR1910.1028 http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=10042 ↩
29CFR1910.1047 http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=10070 ↩
"Coshh Assessment Guide". Sunday, March 15, 2020 https://www.seton.co.uk/coshh-assessment ↩
American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists http://www.acgih.org/home.htm ↩
"Workplace exposure limits". http://www.hse.gov.uk/toolbox/harmful/exposure.htm ↩
"EH40/2005 Workplace exposure limits". http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/eh40.htm ↩
OES Occupational Exposure Standard Archived 2011-09-05 at the Wayback Machine http://hsis.ascc.gov.au/ ↩