Techniques for predicting exposures to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) emitted from cooking processes for cooking workers

[[abstract]]Cooking oil fumes contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are known to cause chronic human health effects; hence long-term exposure data is required for determining workers' exposure profiles and the resultant health risks. However, due to both time and cost constraints, previous studies were performed on a cross-sectional basis. To date, mathematical models have been widely used for predicting long-term exposures in the industrial hygiene field. The aims of this study were to develop suitable predictive models for establishing long-term exposure data on cooking workers. The whole study was conducted in a test chamber with an exhaust hood installed 0.7 m above a deep-frying pan and operated at flow rates of 2.64-5.16 m(3)min(-1). The cooking process that we selected for testing used peanut oil to deep-fry chicken nuggets at 200 degrees C. An IOM inhalable sampler and an XAD-2 tube were successively used to collect particle- and gas-phase PAHs, respectively. All of the collected samples were analyzed for 21 PAHs using a gas chromatograph (GC) with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). The results showed that the emission rates of the total-PAHs in the gas-phase and the particle-phase were 1.45 x 10(4) and 2.14 x 10(2) ng min(-1), respectively. The capture efficiencies of the exhaust hood for the total-PAHs were 39.1-76.5%. The resultant fugitive emission rates of the gas-phase and the particle-phase ranged from 3.41 x 10(3) to 8.82 x 10(3) and from 5.03 x 10(1) to 1.30 x 10(2) ng min(-1), respectively. As no significant difference in the sampling results of the total-PAHs was detected between the chef-zone (i.e., the near zone) and the helper-zone (i.e., the far zone), the well-mixed room (WMR) model was adopted for estimating the exposures of all workers. A good correlation (y = 0.134x + 75.3; R-2 = 0.860) was found between the model predicted results (x; 3.25 x 10(2)-1.57 x 10(3) ng min(-1)) and the field sampling results (y; 1.36 x 10(2)-2.92 x 10(2) ng min(-1)), indicating the plausibility of using the proposed approach to establish a long-term exposure databank for the cooking industry