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Estimation of inhalation risks associated with exposure to volatile organic compounds from construction materials used in an indoor environment
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Journal of Material Sciences & Engineering

ISSN: 2169-0022

Open Access

Estimation of inhalation risks associated with exposure to volatile organic compounds from construction materials used in an indoor environment


7th International Conference on Smart Materials and Structures

July 02-03, 2018 | Vienna, Austria

Mukesh Khare, Paru Johar, Suni Gulia, Arun Kumar, Vivekanandan Perumal, Richard J Ball and Daniel Maskell

Institute of Technology�Delhi, India
University of Bath, UK

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Material Sci Eng

Abstract :

2University of Bath, UK The risk to human health associated with the inhalation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is of growing concern. Typical examples of VOCs which represent a range of different molecular weights and are found in the indoor environment include toluene, limonene and dodecane. The interaction of these VOCs with a control specimen of medium density fiberboard (MDF), laminated-MDF, Tradical�® d�©cor lime render and sheep wool insulation was performed by estimating the associated non-carcinogenic health risk (metric = hazard quotient, i.e., ratio of average daily dose to acceptable daily dose) using the U.S. EPA risk assessment methodology. Average daily dose (ADD) values were estimated using literature-reported information related to emission of VOCs from panels (indoor air concentrations: 2.169 mg/m3, 2.397 mg/m3 and 2.754 mg/m3 for toluene, limonene and dodecane, respectively), air inhalation rate, exposure frequency and exposure duration, and body weight and found to be 14.9 mg/kg-day, 16.4 mg/kg-day and 18.9 mg/kg-day for adults and 69.4 mg/kg-day, 76.7 mg/kg-day and 88.1 mg/ kg-day for children for toluene, limonene and dodecane, respectively. The reference concentration of toluene was found to be 5 mg/m3. Hence, the hazard quotient associated with toluene was found to be 2.98 for adults and 13.88 for children (i.e. >1). This reveals that toluene possesses the greatest inhalation risk to the human health, specifically to the children. Future efforts are required to develop a structured framework for incorporating this approach in the decision-making process of selecting health-protective construction materials used in an indoor environment.

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