• 환경기술인
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• 통권143호
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• pp.16-23
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• 1998

• 분석과학
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• 제34권5호
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• pp.202-211
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• 2021

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) have been regulated by the Air Pollution Control Act (1978) and their atmospheric concentrations have been monitored in 39 monitor sites in Korea. However, measurement standards of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in HAPs at ambient levels have not been established in Korea. Primary reference gas mixtures (measurement standards) at ambient levels are required for accurately monitoring atmospheric VOCs in HAPs and managing their emissions. In this study, primary reference gas mixtures (PRMs) at 5 nmol/mol were developed in order to establish primary national standards of VOCs in HAPs at ambient levels. Primary reference gas mixtures (PRMs) were prepared in pressurized aluminum cylinders with special internal surface treatment using gravimetric method. Analytical methods using gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (GC-FID) coupled with a cryogenic preconcentrator were also developed to verify the consistency of gravimetrically prepared HAP VOCs PRMs. Three different columns installed in the GC-FID were evaluated and compared for the retention times and separation of eighteen target components in a chromatogram. Results show that the HAP VOCs PRMs at 5 nmol/mol were consistent within a relative expanded uncertainty (k=2) of less than 3 % except acrylonitrile (less than 6 %) and the 18 VOCs were stable for 1 year within their associated uncertainties.

• 한국대기환경학회지
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• 제21권2호
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• pp.191-204
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• 2005

Building and furnishing materials and consumer product are important sources of volatile organic compounds(VOCs) and other aldehydes in the indoor environment. Some available evidence indicates that VOCs can cause adverse health effects to the building occupants and contribute to some of the symptoms of what we call, 'Sick House Syndrome' in Korea. The aims of this study were to evaluate the efficiency of emission system and to investigate comparison of the emission characteristics of different building materials such as wall-papers, paints, and adhesives. The emission of VOCs from building materials were determined in the small chambers defining the temperature, relative humidity, and ventilation rate in this study. VOCs were sampled for 20 minutes using Tenax-TA tubes and analysed by GC-MS with thermal desorption. The stability of conditions for temperature and relative humidity in this small chamber system showed that the fluctuation of temperature was between 25.4$\pm$0.3$^{\circ}C$ and that of relative humidity was 50.2$\pm$0.6$\%$ under the airflow rate of 167 mL/min. The emission tests from building materials resulted in TVOC emission rates of 0.011 $\~$ 3.108 mg/m$^{2}$h after 7 days. The general wall-papers emitted toluene abundantly and the natural wall-papers mainly emitted n-butanol and a minor amount of alkanes compound such as n -tetradecane. The remainder consisted of toluene, m,p -xylene, and styrene. The paints mainly emitted toluene and the adhesives mainly emitted chloroform as well as toluene. As a result, this study is expected to suggest meaningful data for future studies in exposure control through selecting healthy building materials and for the establishment of guidelines for various building materials in Korea.

• 한국환경과학회지
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• 제20권11호
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• pp.1373-1382
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• 2011

This research had been conducted from May to October 2007, studying 110 residents of G, Y, H industrial area in Jun-nam province. It is designed to understand the difference in levels of indoor, outdoor and personal exposure to VOCs(benzene, toluene, Ethylbenzene) and a health risk assessment was conducted to see if there was any fatal cause from carcinogenic or non - carcinogenic elements from a case group and a control group in all areas as well as each different area. In the case of benzene in the air, the geometric levels for the case group are indoor, outdoor and personal exposure; a higher than for the control group. As a results of the Monte - Carlo study about benzene, it shows that the case group's carcinogenicity is higher than that of the control group and it also shows that, on the CTE, RME condition and Monte - Carlo analysis, all subjects are seen to exceed the carcinogenicity tolerance $10^{-6}$ of US EPA. In the case of toluene, ethylbenzene on the CTE, RME condition and Monte - Carlo analysis, these do not exceed the non - carcinogenic standard of 1, but toluene in RME condition for both groups' personal exposure and the indoor and personal exposure of ethylbenzene in Monte - Carlo show that these seem to exceed the standard.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• 제17권2호
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• pp.95-107
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• 2002

This study was designed to investigate the characteristics of atmospheric concentrations of toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Korea. Target compounds included 1,3-butadiene, aromatics such as BTEX, and a number of carbonyl compounds. In this paper, as the first part of the study, the performance of sampling and analytical methods was evaluated for the measurement of selected VOCs and carbonyl compounds in the ambient air. VOCs were determined by the adsorbent tube sampling and automatic thermal desorption coupled with GC/MSD analysis, while carbonyls by the DNPH-silica cartridge sampling with HPLC analysis. The methodology was investigated with a wide range of performance criteria such as repeatability, linearity. lower detection limits, collection efficiency, thermal conditioning, breakthrough volume and calibration methods using internal standards. In addition, the sampling and analytical methods established in this study were applied to real field samples duplicately collected in various ambient environments. Precisions for the duplicate samples appeared to be comparable with the performance criteria recommended by USEPA TO-17. The overall precision of the sampling and analytical methods was estimated to be within 20 ∼ 30% for major aromatic VOCs such as BTEX, whereas the precision for major carbonyl compounds such as formaldehyde and acetaldehyde was within 10 ∼ 20% for field samples. This study demonstrated that the adsorbent sampling and thermal desorption method can be reliably applied for the measurement of BTEX in ppb levels frequently occurred in common indoor and ambient environments.

• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• 제4권1호
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• pp.42-54
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• 2010

Automobile emissions have caused a major hydrocarbon pollution problem in the ambient air of many cities around the world. This study was conducted to measure the pollution status of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in some urban residential areas in Seoul, Korea. A total of 20 VOCs (11 aromatic and 9 chlorinated species) were identified at 4 urban residential sites in Seoul, Korea from February 2009 to July 2009. Comparison of total VOC (TVOC) concentration data indicated the dominance of the aromatic species with the maximum (72.2 ppbC) at Jong Ro (JR) and the minimum at Yang Jae (33.4 ppbC). The peak concentration of TVOC occurred during spring at all sites with an exception at Gang Seo (GS), where it was recorded during winter. The distribution of individual VOCs at the study sites was characterized by high toluene concentration. A strong correlation of benzene was also observed with other VOCs and criteria pollutants at all sites (except YJ). The overall results of this study suggest that vehicular emissions have greatly contributed to the increase in VOC pollution at all the study sites.

• 한국환경과학회지
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• 제4권5호
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• pp.447-459
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• 1995

Volatile organic compounds(VOCs) are of concern for their potential chronic toxicity, their suspected role in the formation of smog, and their suspected role in destruction of stratospheric ozone. Present study evaluated the exposures to selected VOCs in three microenvironments: 2 chlorinated and 5 aromatic VOCs in the indoor and outdoor air, and 5 aromatic VOCs in the breathing zone air of gas-service station attendants. With permissible Quality Assurance and Quality Control performances VOC concentrations were measured 1) to be higher in indoor air than in outdoor air, 2) to be higher in two Taegu residential areas than in a residential area of Hayang, and 3) to be higher in the nighttime than in the daytime. Among five aromatics, Benzene and Toluene were two most highly measured VOCs in breathing zone air of service station attendants. Based on the sum of VOC concentrations, the VOC exposure during refueling was estimated to be about 10% of indoor and outdoor exposures. For Benzene only, the exposure during refueling was estimated to cause about 52% of indoor and outdoor exposure. The time used to calculate the exposures was 2 minutes for refueling and 24 hours for indoor and outdoor exposures.

• 한국환경보건학회지
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.100-107
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• 2001

On the planning for the systematic management and control of the air pollution display methods were used to evaluate the spatial pollutant concentration status. This study were conducted to investigate the practical using of Geographic Information System(GIS) technology on the air pollution control and management which were computer-based systems that were used to store and manipulate geographic information in the macro city. In this study 137 samples were corrected by passive samplers and analysed by GC/MSD for 16 VOCs in Seoul (25 distincts) distributed by TM-coordinate(2 km$\times$2km), and finally displayed by Arciew program(version 3.2, ESRI Inc, USA) for windows. The concentration of benzene and toluene showed high level in whole area of seoul area of Seoul and distribution of butylbenzen, trothroloetylene, stylen showed high level in whole area of Seoul except a few distincts and the distribution of isopropylbenzene, 1,2-dichroloethane showed higher level in core area than that of Kangnam and Kangbuk area. In conclusion, products of this study of using GIS technology apply on the spatial distribution of VOCs concentration was very effective than that of other methods(e.g., contouring concentration method, pie or column chart, graduated symbols), especially in mapping and symbolization of pollution status evaluation.

• 한국환경보건학회지
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• 제41권1호
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• pp.24-29
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• 2015

Objectives: The objective of this study was to identify determine factors for blood VOCs levels in college students. Methods: Venous blood samples were collected from healthy 29 male and 25 female volunteers. The samples were analyzed with solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. Results: Blood concentrations of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, m-,p-xylene, o-xylene were higher in smoking group than in non-smoking group. Geometric means of smoking group and non-smoking group were 0.45 and $0.36{\mu}g/L$ in benzene, 0.82 and $0.47{\mu}g/L$ in toluene, 0.44 and $0.41{\mu}g/L$ in ethylbenzene, 0.49 and $0.39{\mu}g/L$ in m-,p-xylene and 0.47 and $0.43{\mu}g/L$ in o-xylene, respectively. Gender, alcohol drinking, coffee, commuting time (30 minutes) by a car and adjacency between home and road were not associated with increasing blood VOCs concentrations of college students. Conclusion: Smoking habit was significantly associated with blood concentrations of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, o-,m-,p-xylene in college students.

• 한국대기환경학회지
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• 제26권2호
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• pp.161-176
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• 2010

We examined high ozone episodes observed during the intensive measurement periods (11 May~21 June and 30 July~11 August 2009) in the Gulf of Gwangyang. During that period, there were a few events (or days) in which 1 hr averaged ozone concentrations were greater than 100 ppbv. The analysis of ozone budget and photochemical characteristics related to the ozone production was carried out using a photochemical box model. Ozone sensitivity to $NO_x$ and VOCs was also examined in the study area during the measurement period. Diurnal variation of ozone during the episodes was similar to that of odd hydrogen radicals ($HO_2,CH_3O_2$, and $RO_2$), suggesting significant correlation with photochemical production of ozone during the episodes. In general, ozone concentration in the study area during the measurement period was sensitive to VOCs, whereas ozone was sensitive to $NO_x$ under certain conditions. Ozone sensitivity assessment using a radical budget analysis and $NO_x$/VOCs-control strategy was consistent with that using indicator species ($H_2O_2/HNO_3$ ratio).