VOCs Fugitive Emission Characteristics and Health Risk Assessment from Typical Plywood Industry in the Yangtze River Delta Region, China

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions from the plywood manufacturing industry in China have received concerns during recent years. A total of 115 VOCs were measured in the adhesive-making, adhesive-coating, and hot-pressing workshops of the plywood manufacturing industry to investigate fugitive emission characteristics of VOCs and assess their health risks to workers. The average concentration of total VOCs in workshops of the plywood manufacturing industry is 467 ± 359 μg/m3, whereas the value for ambient air is 81.4 μg/m3. For specific processes, the adhesive-coating and hot-pressing processes show higher VOCs concentrations (501 μg/m3–519 μg/m3) than the adhesive-making process (340 μg/m3). Formaldehyde, ethyl acetate, and dichloromethane are the three most abundant VOCs in workshops, with relative contributions to total VOCs of 55.9–63.1%, 4.3–11.0%, and 1.7–4.4%, respectively. For ozone formation potential (OFP) of VOCs, formaldehyde is the largest contributor (86.1%), followed by toluene, xylenes, and propanal. The non-cancer toxic risks (HI) and cancer risks of total VOCs (T-LCR) for three processes are calculated as 2.93–3.94 and 2.86–4.17 × 10−4 using the US EPA recommended methods, both significantly higher than threshold values (1.0 for HI and 10−4 for LCR), suggesting the highly toxic and cancer risks to workers. Formaldehyde contributes 68.1–78.2% and 91.4–93.9% of HI and T-LCR, respectively. The designed risk reduction scheme of VOCs based on air ventilation suggests that air ventilation rates of formaldehyde need to reach 4–5 times in 8 h in three processes to reduce T-LCR to 10−5. These results are useful for developing VOCs control measures and evaluating VOCs occupational health risk for workers in the plywood manufacturing industry