• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.22-30
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• 2015

In order to prevent decay, distortion, bending, twist on wood products such as wooden furnitures, variety of coating materials were developed and used so far. The coating materials for wood finishing can be synthesized by natural resource or petroleum. However, these coating materials can cause contamination of indoor air quality due to emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In this study, commercialized coating materials for wood finishing such as varnish, coat, and stain were evaluated on emission characteristics of VOCs. Among the varnish, eco-friendly products had about 15~46% lower TVOC emission ($1,042{\mu}g/m^2h{\sim}3,257{\mu}g/m^2h$, respectively, than typical product ($7,100{\mu}g/m^2h$). Natural resource based coating material showed lowest TVOC emission level. However, one of natural resource based waterborne stain showed higher TVOC emission level because waterborne stain already contained higher amount of natural VOC. Oil-based stain might not be suitable for indoor use on interior wall and furniture due to exceed amount of TVOC. Based on results, natural resource based coat or waterborne stain are recommenced to use on wood products.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.41 no.1
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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.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.209-218
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• 2010

The fifty six components of volatile organic compounds(VOCs) were continuously measured by the hour to see the distributions their of its concentration and the ozone creating contribution of nitric oxides and VOCs in Gamjeon Odor and VOCs Monitoring Network from April to September, 2008. Aromatics occupied 51.3% of VOCs and paraffins, alkanes and olefins came in order. The monthly concentration of VOCs in Gamjeon was high in July and low in September. As for hourly concentration of ozone and nitric oxides, ozone started to increase since 10am having the highest in the daytime, and nitric oxides had the different trend from that of ozone, showing the lowest in the daytime. The photochemical ozone creating potentials(POCPs) of toluene, propane, m/p-xylene, ethylbenzene, and 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene were 30.6%, 10.2%, 9.4%, 7.4% and 5.2% respectively. These five components occupied 62.8% of total POCPs, which means they contributed to the ozone creation mainly. Related with the ozone creating contribution, the ratio of VOCs to NOx was generally under 6 occupied 72.0%, which came under the area coexisting the limit of VOCs. Therefore it is thought that the management of emission source of VOCs is very important for the reduction of ozone.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.387-396
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• 2003

A field study was conducted during the summer time of 2002 to determine compositions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from vehicles and to develop source emission profiles that is applied to CMB model to estimate the source contribution of certain area. Source emission profile is widely used for the estimation of source contribution by the chemical mass balance model and have to be developed applicable for the target area of estimation. This study was aimed to develop source emission profile and estimation of source contribution of VOCs after application of the chemical mass balance (CMB) receptor model. After considering the emission inventory and other research results for the VOCs in Seoul, Korea, the sources like vehicle emission (tunnel), gas station (gasoline, diesel), solvent usage (painting operation, dry cleaning, graphic art), and gas fuels were selected for the major VOCs sources. Furthermore, ambient air samples were simultaneously collected from 09:00 to 11:00 for four days at eight different official air quality monitoring sites as receptors in Seoul during summer of 2001. Source samples were collected by canisters, and then about seventy volatile organic compounds were analyzed by gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (GC/FID). Based on both the developed source profiles and the database of the receptors, CMB model was intensively applied to estimate mass contribution of VOCs sources. Examining the source profile from the vehicle, the portion of alkanes of VOCs was highest, and then the portion of aromatics such toluene, m/p-xylene were followed. In case of gas fuel. they have their own components; the content of butane, propane, ethane was higher than any other component according to the fuel usage. The average of the source apportionment on VOCs for 8 sites showed that the major sources were vehicle emission and gas fuels. The vehicle emission source was revealed as having the highest contribution with an average of 49.6%, and followed by solvent with 21.3%, gas fuel with 16.1%, gasoline with 13.1%.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.165-173
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• 2013

To establishment of PT Program for Indoor air quality field that manufacture of confidential development PTMs (proficiency testing materials) and examined of proficiency testing evaluation included sampling process whether or not that is valid. Confirmation of homogeneity and stability of PTMs prepared. PTMs were confirmed to be homogeneous enough to be used as proficiency testing materials since withinbottle homogeneities of the RMs were lower than 0.3 times of targeted standard deviation of proficiency testing. The result of this study showed that the Robust RSD of proficiency testing for VOCs (volatile organic compounds) appeared 23~43% in concentration of 50~320 ${\mu}g/m^3$ for Method A(Distribution by adsorption in Tenax-tube of VOCs), but less 13~42% in concentration of 200~1200 ${\mu}g/m^3$, 16~31% in concentration of 100~450 ${\mu}g/m^3$ for Method B (distribution by VOCs of gas phase in 10L Tedalr bag), C (directly sampling of cylinder with high pressure) respectively. The result of this study showed that method C with sampling is most adequate to the proficiency testing for VOCs in indoor air.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.191-196
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• 2007

Indoor air differs from outdoor atmosphere since it contains chemical and physical contaminants from building materials. This study deals with the biological effects of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from synthetic fiber carpet materials. One group of Tradescantia inflorescence was exposed to VOCs from the carpet sample in the environmental test chamber, while the other inflorescence group was exposed to a TO-14 standard gas mixture (1 ppm) for comparison. After the exposure, VOCs from the carpet were analysed by the desorber/GC/MS method, and micronuclei in the pollen mother cells of Tradescantia were scored under a microscope $({\times}400)$ to evaluate the genotocixicity induced by the exposure to VOCs. The chemical analysis confirmed that a total of 12 VOCs were released from the carpet materials, among which stylene $(71.9{\mu}g\;m^{-3})$ and toluene $(49.6{\mu}g\;m^{-3})$ were in the highest concentration. Twenty four hours of exposure to VOCs from the carpet in the environmental test chamber resulted in a micronucleus frequency as high as $7.73{\pm}0.75MCN$ per 100 tetrads, which was similar to that induced after exposure to the TO-14 standard gas mixture (1 ppm) for 4 hours. Meanwhile, two hours of exposure to the standard gas mixture did not cause a significant increase in the genotoxicity compared to the spontaneous micronucleus frequency. This result indicates that exposure for a long time to the air contaminated with VOCs from the carpet materials causes a genotoxic effect. The biological-chemical combination analyses in the study proved to be an effective tool for monitoring the indoor air contaminants.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.468-475
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• 2005

Biofilters packed with various materials have emerged as a sustainable technology for the treatment of volatile organic compounds (VOCs); however, problems including low performance and clogging are commonly encountered. Recently, a bioactive foam reactor (BFR) using surfactants has been suggested to ensure efficient and stable VOCs removal performance. This study was mainly conducted to investigate the feasibility of BFRs using toluene as a model compound. Prior to bioreactor studies, a series of bottle tests were used to select a suitable surfactant for the BFR application. Experimental results of the batch bottle tests indicated that TritonX-100 was the most appropriate one among the surfactants tested, since it showed a minimal effect on the toluene biodegradation rate while the other surfactants lowered the toluene biodegradation rate significantly. Using the selected surfactant, the BFR performance was determined by changing operating parameters including gas residence time and toluene loading. As the gas residence time increased from 0.5 minutes to 2 minutes, the toluene removal efficiency increased from approximately 50% to 80%. In addition, an increase of the toluene loading from $38\;g/m^3/hr$ to $454\;g/m^3/hr$ resulted in a decrease of toluene removal efficiency from approximately 70% to 20%. The BFR had a maximum elimination capacity of $108\;g/m^3/hr$ for toluene, which was much higher than those generally reported in the literature. The high toluene-elimination performance indicates that the BFR be a potential alternative to the conventional, packed-type biofilters. However, the limitation of toluene solubilization and foam stability at either high or low gas flow rate are still problems to be challenged.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.81-91
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• 2000

Residents who live near petrochemical industrial areas are exposed to a variety of petrochemicals, including benzene or benzene-containing liquids. It is a serious concern because some VOCs are carcinogens naturally present in petroleum and gasoline. The aim of this study was to assess the exposure to VOCs, measured by personal/indoor/outdoor air sampling, and to estimate the relationship between the air samples and biological monitoring data. Through biological monitoring, we investigated VOCs in blood and s-phenylmercapturic acid (s-PMA) , minor urinary metabolites of benzene. The external benzene exposure of subjects was measured using passive dosimeters and urinary s-PMA and blood-benzene were determined by GC/MS. More than 80% of subjects were detected for m-xylene, ethylbenzene, and toluene in blood samples and not detected at all for chloroform, 1 , 1 , 1 -trichloroethylene, and tetrachloroethylene. The mean concentration of benzene in the breathing zone of residents was 6.3 $\mu\textrm{g}$/m$^3$, personal, indoor and outdoor concentrations were strongly correlated to each other. s-PMA detected in all subject samples was affected by personal exposure (p< 0.05) and the level was different by age (p< 0.01). Blood benzene was not affected by external benzene during these periods .

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.36 no.7
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• pp.498-505
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• 2014

This study was carried out to characterize the ambient VOCs concentrations of industrial complex in Daegu city. VOCs concentrations of industrial complex area appeared to be higher than those in the non-industrial complex area as following order toluene > ethylbenzene > m,p-xylenes > o-xylene but benzene and chloroform were similar to each other sites. There was seasonal variation of VOCs concentrations in the industrial complex area, higher in summer and lower in winter. In particular the industrial complex area shows that higher on weekday than weekend and higher in the daytime than in the morning or nighttime because industrial complex area influenced by the chemicals. Correlation coefficients among VOCs were confirmed that VOCs of industrial complex area were more related to each other than those of non-industrial complex area and VOCs concentrations have shown generally negative correlation with wind speed.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2011

In this study, the formation of nanoparticles by a reaction of ozone with the volatile organic compounds(VOCs) emitted from a commercial home cleaner liquid was investigated using a $1-m^3$ reaction chamber($1{\times}1{\times}1m$). The home cleaner liquid was found to contain many VOCs, particularly terpenes. Some of these VOCs are known to readily react with ozone, forming indoor secondary pollutants. The correlation of particle concentration and reacted ozone concentration was examined with injections of three different ozone concentrations; 50, 100 and 200 ppb. The secondary nanoparticles were formed faster, with their numbers and mass concentrations becoming higher on increasing the concentration of ozone injected.