Abstract
Printers can release numerous particles to contaminate indoor environments and pose health risks. Clarifying the exposure level and physicochemical properties of printer-emitted particles (PEPs) will help to evaluate the health risks of printer operator. In our study, the particles concentration in the printing shop was monitored in real time for a long time (12 h/day, total 6 days), and the PEPs were collected to characterize their physicochemical properties including shape, size and compositions. The result showed that the concentration of PEPs is closely related to the printing workload and the highest particle mass concentration of PM10 and PM2.5 was 212.73 μg m−3 and 91.48 μg m−3, respectively. The concentration of PM1 in the printing shop was in the range of 11.88–80.59 μg m−3 for mass value, and 174.83–1348.84 P cm−3 for count value which changed with the printing volume. The particle sizes of PEPs were less than 900 nm, 47.99% of PEPs was less than 200 nm, and 14.21% of the particles were at the nanoscale. PEPs contained 68.92% organic carbon (OC), 5.31% elemental carbon (EC), 3.17% metal elements, and 22.60% other inorganic additives, which contained more OC and metal elements than toners. Total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) levels were 18.95 ng/mg in toner and 120.70 ng/mg in PEPs. The carcinogenic risk of PAHs in PEPs was 1.40 × 10–7. These findings suggested future studies should pay more attention to the health effects of printing workers exposed to nanoparticles.
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The authors confirm that the summary of data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. Detailed data are available from the corresponding author upon request.
Abbreviations
- MDGs:
-
Millennium Development Goals
- PM:
-
Particulate matter
- PEPs:
-
Printer-emitted particles
- SEM:
-
Scanning electron microscope
- XPS:
-
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
- OC:
-
Organic carbon
- EC:
-
Elemental carbon
- FID:
-
Flame ion detector
- IMPROVE_A temperature protocol:
-
Interagency Monitoring of PROtected Visual Environments_A temperature protocol
- PAH:
-
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
- NAP:
-
Naphthalene
- ANY:
-
Acenaphthylene
- ACE:
-
Acenaphthene
- FLU:
-
Fluorene
- PHE:
-
Phenanthrene
- ANT:
-
Anthracene
- FLA:
-
Fluoranthene
- PYR:
-
Pyrene
- BAA:
-
Benzo[a]anthracene
- CHR:
-
Chrysene
- BBF:
-
Benzo[b]fluoranthene
- BKF:
-
Benzo[k]fluoranthene
- BAP:
-
Benzo[a]pyrene
- ICDP:
-
Indeno (1,2,3-cd)pyrene
- DAHA:
-
Dibenzo (a,h)anthracene
- BGHIP:
-
Benzo (g,hi)perylene
- CR:
-
Cancer risk
- C TWA :
-
The time-weighted average concentration
- TEF:
-
Toxic equivalency factor
- \(\sum {{\text{BAP}}_{{{\text{eq}}}} }\) :
-
The equivalent concentration of BAP
- LDP:
-
Laser printing devices
- VOC:
-
Volatile organic compounds
- ROS:
-
Reactive oxygen species
- HRV:
-
Heart rate variability
- HR:
-
Heart rate
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Acknowledgements
All authors would like to express our gratitude to the help from the working group of environmental exposure and human health of the China Cohort Consortium (See http://chinacohort.bjmu.edu.cn/).
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Number 31971313].
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Wang, H., Lyu, L., Gao, Y. et al. A case study on occupational exposure assessment and characterization of particles in a printing shop in China. Environ Geochem Health 45, 5371–5385 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-023-01592-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-023-01592-x