Long-term monitoring of indoor, outdoor, and personal exposure to gaseous chemical compounds

Identifying high-risk volatile organic compounds in residences of Chinese megacities: A comprehensive health-risk assessment

Indoor volatile organic compounds (VOCs) pose considerable health hazards. However, research on hazardous VOCs in Chinese residences has been conducted on a limited spectrum. This study used Monte Carlo simulations with data from Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen to assess VOC health risks in Chinese homes. We identified high-risk VOCs and analyzed the impact of geographic location, age group, activity duration, and inhalation rate on VOC exposure, including lifetime risks. Formaldehyde, acrolein, naphthalene, and benzene posed the highest risks. Notably, acrolein made the leading contribution to non-cancer risks across all megacities. Naphthalene had elevated cancer and non-cancer risks in Shenzhen. This study highlights the need to investigate acrolein and naphthalene, which are currently unregulated but pose substantial health risks. The cumulative cancer risk (TCR) decreases from adults to children, while the cumulative non-cancer risk (HI) is higher for children. In all cities, the average TCR for adults exceeds the tolerable threshold of 10-4, and the average HI values surpass the safety threshold of 1. Nearly 100 % of the population faces a lifetime cancer risk above 10-4, and over 71 % face a non-cancer risk exceeding 10 (tenfold the benchmark). This study underscores the critical need for developing control strategies tailored to VOCs.

Extraction of volatile organic compounds liberated upon filament extrusion by 3D pen and its comparison with a desktop 3D printer using solid-phase microextraction fiber and Arrow

Desktop 3D printers that operate by the fused deposition modeling (FDM) mechanism are known to release numerous hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during printing, including some with potential carcinogenic effects. Operating in a similar manner to FDM 3D printers, 3D pens have gained popularity recently from their ability to allow users to effortlessly draw in the air or create various 3D printed shapes while handling the device like a pen. In contrast to numerous modern 3D printers, 3D pens lack their own ventilation systems and are often used in settings with minimum airflow. Their operation makes users more vulnerable to VOC emissions, as the released VOCs are likely to be in the breathing zone. Consequently, monitoring VOCs released during the use of 3D pens is crucial. In this study, VOCs liberated while extruding acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) filaments from a 3D pen were measured by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) combined with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). SPME was investigated using the traditional fiber and Arrow geometries with the DVB/Carbon WR/PDMS sorbent while four different brands of ABS filaments-Amazon Basics, Gizmodork, Mynt 3D, and Novamaker-were used with the 3D pen. Heatmap analysis showed differentiation among these brands based on the liberated VOCs. The nozzle temperature and printing speed were found to affect the number and amount of released VOCs. This study goes a step further and presents for the first time a comparison between 3D pen and a desktop 3D printer based on liberated VOCs. Interestingly, the findings reveal that the 3D pen releases a greater number and amount of VOCs compared to the printer. The amounts of liberated VOCs, as indicated by the corresponding chromatographic peak areas, were found to be 1.4 to 62.6 times higher for the 3D pen compared to the 3D printer when using SPME Arrow.