• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.673-682
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• 2020

This study investigates the concentration distribution of aldehydes and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the archive of the National Library in Korea and evaluates the health risks to workers from hazardous chemicals. Acetaldehyde had the highest concentration among the nine species of aldehydes present in the archive and the concentration of toluene was the highest among the six species of VOCs. Most of the detected substances showed that their indoor concentrations were higher than the outdoor ones, suggesting the possibility of indoor sources of aldehydes and VOCs. The evaluation of health risks for workers based on these measurement results showed that not all substances were hazardous to the human body. However, considering the possibility of the presence of indoor sources and the potential limits of our study owing its short period, it is necessary to conduct long-term studies on the concentration distribution of indoor pollutants in the archive environment.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.60-69
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• 2007

Understanding the behavior of gas phase VOCs (volatile organic compounds) in unsaturated soils is of a great environmental importance for public health concerns. Moment analysis for the breakthrough curves (BTCs) during transport of chemicals in porous media was known to be a useful tool to evaluate the velocity, spreadness, and the skewness of the plume of the chemicals. In this study, the temporal moments of the BTCs of a group of VOCs were analyzed for the gaseous transport in an unsaturated soil. BTCs were measured using lab-scale column experiments for four different VOCs at the water saturation range of 0.04-0.46, and for eleven VOCs at a water saturation of 0.21. The central second and third moments of the VOCs were compared with the water saturation and the first moment. It was found that both central second and third moments increased with the first moment. The central third moment was, however, found to be more sensitive to the first moment.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.1-7
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• 2016

A range of techniques have been being developed to remove the volatile organic compounds from paining processes. High temperature decomposition of harmful VOCs using arc plasma has recently been proposed, and this work analyzed the extreme hot process by computer-aided fluid dynamics prior to the reactor design. Numerical simulations utilized the conservation equations of mass and momentum. The simulation showed that the fluid flowed down along the inner surface of the centrifugal reactor by forming intensive spiral trajectories. Although the high temperature gas generated by plasma influences the bottom of the reactor, no heat transfer in radial direction appeared. The decomposition efficiency of a typical VOCs, toluene, was found to be a maximum of 67% across the reactor, which was similar to the value (approximately 70%) for the lab-scale test.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.291-295
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• 2011

A bake-out process using auto switchgear for five days was performed to evaluate the reduction effect of the concentration of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and formaldehyde in a newly-built elementary school gymnasium. Reduction rates of VOCs were observed as followings: 38.2, 64.2, 86.3, 80.2, and 71.5% for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and styrene, respectively, which satisfies the indoor air quality standards of newly-built apartment houses in Korea. The reduction rate of total VOCs and formaldehyde were 67.0 and 24.7%, respectively. Those results proved that the bake-out process using auto switchgear was effective for reducing indoor air pollutants.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.299-302
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• 2005

Vehicle occupant exposure to air pollutants has been a subject of concern in recent years because of higher levels of air pollutants inside gasoline or diesel-using vehicle, comparing to the surrounding atmosphere. This study evaluated the potential exposure to respirable suspended particulate (RSP), nitrogen dioxide ($NO_2$) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), comparing weekday (Monday and Thursday) and weekend (Saturday). Indoor mean concentrations of RSP inside vehicle were 51.2 $ug/m^3$ and 75.52 $ug/m^3$ in weekday and weekend, respectively. Measured indoor NO$_2$ concentrations were 14,8 ppb and 20.8 ppb, respectively. Benzene and toluene mean concentrations inside vehicle were 5.4${\pm}$2.4 ppb and 23.8${\pm}$33.8 ppb, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2004.05b
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• pp.176-179
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• 2004

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. VOCs include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects. Current technologies for the treatment of VOC contaminated off-gasses are expensive to operate and more cost effective technologies are needed.(omitted)

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.169-174
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• 2017

Vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) is a promising treatment method for volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This study focuses on a VSA process for regenerating activated carbon spent with VOCs, and then investigates its adsorption capacities. Toluene was selected as the test VOC molecule, and the VSA regeneration experiments results were compared to the thermal swing adsorption process. Cyclic adsorption-desorption experiments were performed using a lab-scale apparatus with commercial activated carbon (Samchully Co.). The VSA regeneration was performed in air (0.5 L/min) at 363.15 K and 13,332 Pa. The comparative results depicted that in terms of VSA regeneration, it was found that after the fifth regeneration, about a 90% regeneration ratio was maintained. These experiments thus confirm that the VSA regeneration process has good recovery while operating at low temperatures (363.15 K) and 13,332 Pa.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2017

Objectives: The objective of this study is to evaluate the exposure of VOCs and effects of the chemicals on the nail technicians whose works in a nail shop. Methods: For four month from May to August in 2016, we measured twenty-two kinds of VOCs in ten nail shops and carried out health examinations on thirty-four workers in there. Results: The TVOC concentration in indoor air of nail shops is $0.487mg/m^3$ at a minimum and $33.236mg/m^3$ at a maximum where it consists of 70.5% of Ketones, 25.4% of Alcohols, 2.6% of Esters, 0.8% of Aldehydes and 0.7% of Aromatics. The VOCs concentration during nail art works shows an increase in average ratio 1.8 compared to the concentration of indoor air quality and also the concentration of Isopropanol rose with 3.2 of the highest ratio. The results of Spearman correlation between TVOC concentration in indoor air and environmental factor was like that has significance level of correlation(${\rho}$<0.05, r=0.682) in case of number of customers per day, but the other factors were not meaningful in correlation. Correlation between VOCs and medical check-up items was like that has positive significance level(${\rho}$<0.01, r=0.638) between isopropanol and GPT, but the others have not meaningful. The exposure level of VOCs was not exceed the criteria exposure level 1 of working environment measuring method which announced by labor ministry in all ten nail shop indoor air quality. Conclusions: In this study although it was not significant correlation between harmful substances and medical check-up items in the nail shop indoor air quality, it is necessary to do more ventilation and to install exhaust facilities because of existing high VOCs concentration in the nail shop indoor air.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.26
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• pp.7.1-7.9
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• 2011

Objectives: This study was conducted to examine the relationship between crude oil exposure and physical symptoms among residents participating in clean-up work associated with the Hebei Spirit oil spill, 2007 in Korea. Methods: A total of 288 residents responded to a questionnaire regarding subjective physical symptoms, sociodemographic characteristics and clean-up activities that occurred between two and eight weeks after the accident. Additionally, the urine of 154 of the respondents was analyzed for metabolites of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals. To compare the urinary levels of exposure biomarkers, the urine of 39 inland residents who were not directly exposed to the oil spill were analyzed. Results: Residents exposed to oil remnants through clean-up work showed associations between physical symptoms and the exposure levels defined in various ways, including days of work, degree of skin contamination, and levels of some urinary exposure biomarkers of VOCs, metabolites and metals, although no major abnormalities in urinary exposure biomarkers were observed. Conclusions: This study provides evidence of a relationship between crude oil exposure and acute human health effects and suggests the need for follow-up to evaluate the exposure status and long-term health effects of clean-up participants.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.95-101
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• 2000

High growth of economy and industrial development was produced every air pollutants, that is, SOx, NOx, dust, VOCs and malodorous gas was produced. Recently, volatile organic compounds(VOCs) was bring about very serious environmental problems. Ulsan petrochemical complex was densely a large scale of petrochemical plant. This study was carried out to select treatment equipment of VOCs produced from petrochemical plant, and has compared with Carbon filter, Regenerative thermal oxidation(RCO) and Flare stack for technical merit and demerit but also initial investment and operating cost.