Exposure and health risk assessment of indoor volatile organic compounds in a medical university

Chieh-An Cheng; Ting-Chun Ching; Shih-Wei Tsai; Kai-Jen Chuang; Hsiao-Chi Chuang; Ta-Yuan Chang

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2022.113644

Exposure and health risk assessment of indoor volatile organic compounds in a medical university

Environ Res. 2022 Oct:213:113644. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.113644. Epub 2022 Jun 10.

Authors

Chieh-An Cheng¹, Ting-Chun Ching¹, Shih-Wei Tsai², Kai-Jen Chuang³, Hsiao-Chi Chuang⁴, Ta-Yuan Chang⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Occupational Safety and Health, College of Public Health, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
² Institute of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
³ Department of Public Health, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan; School of Public Health, College of Public Health and Nutrition, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁴ School of Respiratory Therapy, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan; Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, New Taipei City, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Occupational Safety and Health, College of Public Health, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan. Electronic address: tychang@mail.cmu.edu.tw.

PMID: 35697085
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.113644

Abstract

Many volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are used for experiments at universities, and most of them contain benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and an extraction solvent of dichloromethane. This study aimed to investigate the indoor concentrations of these five compounds in different locations on campus and to evaluate possible health risks for faculty members and students in a medical university. We selected 10 locations as sampling sites to conduct 4-h monitoring sessions on weekdays each season during 2019-2020. We used a 6-liter canister to collect air samples and analyzed these five VOCs via gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector. Monte Carlo simulation was performed to evaluate the carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risks of these five VOCs. We found that dichloromethane was the most highly detected compound (median: 621.07 μg/m³; range: 44.01-8523.91 μg/m³), and the Department of Medicine had the highest concentration of the total of these VOCs among all of the locations (median: 5595.29 μg/m³; range: 1565.67-7398.66 μg/m³). The median carcinogenic risks of dichloromethane and benzene were 6.36 × 10^-5 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.83 × 10^-6-7.37 × 10^-4) and 5.47 × 10^-6 (95% CI: 4.03 × 10^-7-2.42 × 10^-5), respectively, for faculty members, and the lower risks of 3.14 × 10^-5 (95% CI: 3.39 × 10^-6-3.64 × 10^-4) and 2.69 × 10^-6 (95% CI: 1.97 × 10^-7-1.19 × 10^-5) were estimated for the students. The chronic noncarcinogenic risks of four VOCs were less than one, except for dichloromethane with a median hazard index of 1.92 (95% CI: 2.11 × 10^-1-2.22 × 10¹). This study observed the spatial variation in the concentrations of the total of five VOCs and dichloromethane. The carcinogenic risks were classified as being at the possible level, and the noncarcinogenic risk of dichloromethane was greater than the acceptable level. Increasing local exhaust ventilation during the experiment and reducing the using amount of dichloromethane are recommended actions to reduce VOCs exposures in the medical university.

Keywords: Carcinogenic risk; Exposure assessment; Hazard index; Indoor air; Volatile organic compounds.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants* / analysis
Benzene / analysis
Benzene / toxicity
Environmental Monitoring / methods
Humans
Methylene Chloride / analysis
Risk Assessment
Universities
Volatile Organic Compounds* / analysis

Substances

Air Pollutants
Volatile Organic Compounds
Methylene Chloride
Benzene