Abstract
ABSTRACT Cooking oil fumes contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are known to cause chronic human health effects; hence long-term exposure data is required for determining workers’ exposure profiles and the resultant health risks. However, due to both time and cost constraints, previous studies were performed on a cross-sectional basis. To date, mathematical models have been widely used for predicting long-term exposures in the industrial hygiene field. The aims of this study were to develop suitable predictive models for establishing long-term exposure data on cooking workers. The whole study was conducted in a test chamber with an exhaust hood installed 0.7 m above a deep-frying pan and operated at flow rates of 2.64–5.16 m3 min–1. The cooking process that we selected for testing used peanut oil to deep-fry chicken nuggets at 200°C. An IOM inhalable sampler and an XAD-2 tube were successively used to collect particle- and gas-phase PAHs, respectively. All of the collected samples were analyzed for 21 PAHs using a gas chromatograph (GC) with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). The results showed that the emission rates of the total-PAHs in the gas-phase and the particle-phase were 1.45 × 104 and 2.14 × 102 ng min–1, respectively. The capture efficiencies of the exhaust hood for the total-PAHs were 39.1–76.5%. The resultant fugitive emission rates of the gas-phase and the particle-phase ranged from 3.41 × 103 to 8.82 × 103 and from 5.03 × 101 to 1.30 × 102 ng min–1, respectively. As no significant difference in the sampling results of the total-PAHs was detected between the chef-zone (i.e., the near zone) and the helper-zone (i.e., the far zone), the well-mixed room (WMR) model was adopted for estimating the exposures of all workers. A good correlation (y = 0.134x + 75.3; R2 = 0.860) was found between the model predicted results (x; 3.25 × 102–1.57 × 103 ng min–1) and the field sampling results (y; 1.36 × 102–2.92 × 102 ng min–1), indicating the plausibility of using the proposed approach to establish a long-term exposure databank for the cooking industry.
Highlights
Cooking fumes are known as one of the most significant indoor air pollution sources containing complex chemical compounds, including particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), aromatic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), etc. (Abdullahi et al, 2013)
As no significant difference in the sampling results of the total-PAHs was detected between the chef-zone and the helper-zone, the well-mixed room (WMR) model was adopted for estimating the exposures of all workers
Since temperatures involved in the selected cooking processes is quite low (i.e., 200°C) which can only provide very limited power for the formation of PAHs, it is not so surprising to see the dominance of LMW-PAHs in the emitted PAHs
Summary
Cooking fumes are known as one of the most significant indoor air pollution sources containing complex chemical compounds, including particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), aromatic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), etc. (Abdullahi et al, 2013). Many studies have been conducted to investigate the emission rate of cooking-generated particles (Gao et al, 2013), emissions of particles from cooking exhaust (Mi et al, 2014), and chemical characteristics of particles of various cooking. Previous PAH exposure studies indicated that the naphthalene was the dominant compound (the breathing zone exposure concentrations = 0.15–0.27 μg m–3) during the beefsteak pan-frying process (Sjaastad et al, 2010). Many PAH exposure assessment studies have been conducted, most of them were on the cross-sectional basis due to the cost constraints in both samplings and sample analyses. Considering the chronic health effect of PAHs, the establishment of a long-term exposure data bank is needed for conducting exposure and health risk assessments
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