An Overview on Emission Characteristics and Potential Health Risks of Incense Burning

• Main Authors: Wu, Hung-Ying, 吳虹瑩
• Other Authors: Lee, Fang-Yin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/20140637694842677005

碩士 === 大仁科技大學 === 環境管理研究所 === 103 === Incense burning is a ritual common to Asian countries. With the rising of environmental and health awareness, researchers have investigated the complexity of smoke emitted from smoldering incense in the past 30 years. It is widely acknowledged that incense smoke is a major source of indoor air pollution. This study provides an overview on emission characteristics and potential health risks of burning incense sticks. The slow and incomplete combustion of incense burning releases toxic chemicals which can be categorized into gas-phase and particle-phase air pollutants. The former usually include CO, CO2, SO2, NOx, ammonia, ethylene, methanol, methane, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein, Benzene and VOCs, while the latter comprise EC/OC, heavy metals, inorganic salts, carboxylic acids, anhydrosugars, sugar alcohol, PAHs and Dioxin. Variety and concentration of smoke pollutants are found to be strongly associated with ingredients (herbal and wood powder), additives (dye, fragrance and adhesive powder) and burning conditions (oxygen content, light and humidity). Among the gas-phase pollutants, SO2 is the only compound complies with the air quality standards (0.14/0.25 ppm), the others all exceed the limit prescribed by the Taiwan EPA. TVOC (64.5 ppm) even has concentration level 70 times higher than the limit of 0.56 ppm. Particle-phase pollutants mainly consist of ultrafine particles ranging from PM0.1 to PM0.4. These nanosized PM bearing harmful chemicals such as carcinogens classified by IARC have greater potential to affect respiratory and cardiovascular systems due to a higher surface to mass ratio and deposition fraction in the lungs. It is advisable to maintain good ventilation, reduce the number and use low toxicity incense sticks (Binchotan Charcoal) while burning incense at home or in temples as well as preventing exposure to incense smoke over long periods of time.