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Emission characteristics and health risk assessment of oil mist and VOCs in several typical industrial processes
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Researchers measured harmful particles and chemical fumes (VOCs) released during four common factory processes, including furniture spraying and plastic manufacturing, to see how much health risk they pose to workers. Furniture spraying stood out as by far the riskiest process, releasing chemical levels high enough to pose a measurable long-term cancer risk—even with air filters in place—while the other three processes could be brought to safer levels with proper filtration. This suggests factories should prioritize stronger protections, like better ventilation or safer chemical substitutes, specifically for spray-painting type work.
Oil mist and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are common industrial pollutants that pose serious health risks to exposed workers. However, the emission characteristics and combined health impacts of these pollutants across different industrial processes remain inadequately understood. This study investigated four representative processes: one cold process (furniture spraying, FS) and three hot processes (plastic material calendering, PMC; carpet printing, CP; polyvinyl chloride glove drying, PGD). We characterized oil mist and VOC emissions through both average and instantaneous concentration measurements and evaluated health impacts using three key metrics: deposition flux (DF), lifetime cancer risk (LCR) and hazard quotient (HQ). Results showed that particle number concentrations (>0.3 μm) ranged from 1.24×10 8 to 1.25×10 9 particles m -3 , and mass concentrations varied between 1.148 and 5.654 mg·m -3 . The FS process emitted the highest VOC concentration (41.250 mg·m -3 ), significantly exceeding the other three processes (1.878–3.319 mg·m -3 ). Oxygenated VOCs (OVOCs) were commonly detected across all processes. Only the FS process exhibited a measurable LCR of 6.92 × 10 -5 , primarily attributable to ethylbenzene. The FS process also showed the highest comprehensive health risk, with elevated HQ values for both oil mist (0.077) and VOCs (2.496) even under the application of air filtration, while the HQ values for the other three processes can be reduced to below 1 with effective air filtration. These findings offer important insights for developing targeted risk mitigation strategies based on process-specific emission profiles and pollutant characteristics.
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