Monitoring of VOCs in vehicle enhancement facilities through the use of VOC diffusion tubes

Abstract

The exposure of VOCs has been proven to have detrimental health effects on people, with the particles of the solvents being so small, they particularly attack the lungs, and more so, the alveoli, finding their way into the bloodstream. Apart from causing breathing related problems, VOCs have also been proven to negatively affect parts of the body such as the nervous system, and in some cases, mental development of the brain. VOC’s can be found in products that are used in the paint industry, a sector in which this study will be dedicated to, however it will focus more on the detailing aspect of this industry. The main focus of this work is to identify the levels of exposure to VOCs - specifically toluene and xylene by using a BTEX charcoal diffusion tube. The supplied tubes are specifically designed to be sensitive to toluene and xylene elements in the air only. The BTEX diffusion tubes supplied are often used in other scenarios to measure the exposure of solvents in the air, and therefore were deemed a perfect fit for this scenario and aim of this study. Different scenarios were set in order to begin testing exposure to the VOC’s. Spaces of roughly 150 m2 and 50 m2 were used, both previously equipped with the adequate ventilation methods in order to protect the workers inside the shops. The scope of using two different sized spaces was to see the effects of the exposure would have in a large open space, compared to a more enclosed area. Testing was done with and without the ventilators being turned on, creating 4 different result scenarios. The datasets and results were then compared to try and determine the possible relationship between size of space and exposure levels. The use of ceramic coatings and other detailing products was found to have exposure of toluene and xylene in the settings of the aforementioned garages, however the exposure levels met inside the spaces was much lower than that of the European exposure limits. With a maximum of xylene at 665 µg/m3 and maximum of toluene at 70.3 µg/m3. European limits are at 442 mg/m3 and 384 mg/m3 for xylene and toluene respectively. It is to be noted that other sources of toluene and xylene which may have had a slight effect on the results were not investigated by this study.