Abstract
ROOMS in which xerography machines are used for document reproduction frequently have a strong, characteristic ‘selenium’ smell. It seemed likely that this is caused by selenium compounds released from the selenium plates or drums charged with high voltages in the photosensitising step of the photoelectric printing process. To test this hypothesis, we sampled the air in an unventilated room (48 m3 in volume) housing a xerographic machine, on which some 450–475 copies were reproduced in intermittent use daily. The air was drawn by a small sampling pump at a rate of 1 foot3 h−1 through a fritted diffuser into 20 ml of 0.1 N NaOH for 9 h d−1 for 4 d. The selenium trapped (0.005–0.015 µg) was determined according to the fluorimetric method of Olson1.
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HARKIN, J., DONG, A. & CHESTERS, G. Elevation of selenium levels in air by xerography. Nature 259, 204–205 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/259204b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/259204b0
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