Exposure and health-risk assessment for the Toll-way Station Booth Attendants and Gas Station Workers exposed to Volatile Organic Compounds

• Main Authors: Mei-Ru Chen, 陳美如
• Other Authors: Perng-Jy Tsai
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/40658328319098573372

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 環境醫學研究所 === 90 === Many studies have been conducted on both occupational and non-occupational groups associated with VOC exposures from both gasoline vapor emissions and motor vehicle emissions. However, the VOC exposure levels for toll-way station booth attendants have never been assessed and hence need further investigation. However, considering direct measuring VOC exposure levels in the field is costly and labor consuming, the present study was also set out to develop an indirect method for predicting VOC exposure levels. For gas station, vapour recovery facilities has been introduced to reduce VOC emissions during the gasoline filling process. The second objective of this study was to compare workers’ VOC exposure levels at two kinds of gas station with and without vapour recovery facilities. Toll-way station results show that each of the five VOC contents obtained from both the car lane/ticket-collecting and car lane/cash-collecting booth at the same workshift were quite comparable, but the above values were significantly higher than that obtained from the bus/truck lane booth. For any given type of lane booth, each of the five target VOC contents collected during both the day shift and night shift were quite comparable, but the above values were significantly higher than that collected during the late-night shift. The five target VOC contents in any given type of lane booth were not only affected by its vehicle flowrate, but also affected by its working procedure and the type of vehicle passing through. The vehicle flowrates were able to explained the variation of VOC exposure levels up to 36%~72%. As compared to other workplaces, VOC contents found in the three types of lane booth were comparable with those VOC levels associated with motor vehicle emission sources. The exposure profile of booth attendants for any given workshift can be regarded as a similar exposure group .The exposure levels found in this study were quite comparable with those VOC exposure levels directly associated with vehicle engine exhausts, but were lower than those exposure levels directly associated with gasoline vapor emissions. The carcinogenic risks posed by both benzene and MTBE on booth attendants were not significant (i.e., carcinogenic risks < 10-6), the noncarcinogenic risk are lower than 1, which suggests that VOC exposure levels for booth attendants might be still acceptable at the current stage. Gas station results show that the workers in gas stations without vapour recovery facilities are higher than workers in gas stations with vapour recovery facilities. The VOCs exposure levels of F gas station workers are higher than in C workers. After being calibrated by their oil dispatching amounts, the difference between workers at two kinds of gas station were nonsignificant. The above results might because workers’ exposure levels were not only affected by the variation of personal exposure, but also affected by the VOC contents of gasoline. The carcinogenic risks posed by both benzene and MTBE on gasoline workers were significant (i.e., carcinogenic risks ＞10-6), the noncarcinogenic risk are higher than 1, and thereby the potential health-hazards of gasoline workers might worth further protection in the future.