[laundry chemicals] volatile organic compounds

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), which are emitted into the air due to various organic solvents, paint and automobile usage, are the major cause of air pollution problems in metropolitan areas. In addition, occupational diseases for industrial workers using organic solvents and air pollution and harmfulness in large petrochemical complexes are emerging as social problems. Dry cleaners using organic solvents as a source of VOCs in the atmosphere are also a major source of pollutants. Benzene, toluene, perchlorethylene, ethyl-benzene, and m.p.o-xylene are known to be carcinogenic. Therefore, we evaluated the exposure levels of benzene, toluene, perchlorethylene, ethyl-benzene, and m.p.o-xylene, which are generated from organic solvents used in dry cleaning in dry cleaners, before and after dry cleaning. Compared to the morning and afternoon concentrations, the total VOCs concentration was 450 ㎍ / ㎥ in the morning and 389 ㎍ / ㎥ in the afternoon, which was about 15.7% in the morning. This is generally due to dry cleaning in the morning than in the afternoon. The results of dry cleaning showed that the concentration of total VOCs after dry cleaning was 554 μg / ㎥, which was 3.7 times higher than 148 μg / ㎥ before the operation. Especially, the concentration of Percro was 532 ㎍ / ㎥ after dry cleaning and 30 ㎍ / ㎥ before execution and 17 times higher than before. This indicates that the concentration of volatile organic compounds in the laundry has increased due to the volatilization of the solvent on the clothes after the dry cleaning. In the correlation analysis using SAS, Ethyl-benzene and m.p.o-Xylene of solvent No. 5, eucrin and Super New Cleaner exceeded the significance level of 95%.

Opinion

The above results show that the dry cleaners are exposed to harmful substances and the harmful substances are important factors that inhibit the washing work environment by the carcinogenic ingredients.
Each of the dry cleaners should have a plan to reduce the damage from these harmful substances. One of them is to install the solvent recovery machine in the long term and minimize the distance between the dry machine and the dryer in the short term. Such can be done by installing a ventilation system that can discharge air from the room, so as to prevent the backflow of the air to the room, and to avoid exposure to harmful substances.

Citation: Excerpt from thesis of Environmental Engineering, Kyeongbuk University