BTEXs in Indoor and Outdoor Air Samples: Source Apportionment and Health Risk Assessment of Benzene

Author(s): Haris Hafizal Abd Hamid, Nor Sakinah Jumah, Mohd Talib Latif, Narayanan Kannan

Level of benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, m,p-xylene and o-xylene (BTEXs) was measured in several indoor and outdoor air samples. Five indoor air samples were from motor vehicle workshops and three samples were from gasoline filling stations and the rest were ambient air samples. They were collected using a 1L Tedlar® bag. BTEX analysis was performed with Thermal Desorption (TD) - Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometer (GCMS). The concentration of ?BTEXs in indoor (ID1 to ID5) were 864.29, 115.32, 655.79, 72.99, 96.05 μg/m3 respectively. ?BTEXs in outdoor (OD1 to OD6) samples were, 367.45, 85.12, 50.29, 159.94, 46.02, 68.57 μg/m3 respectively. Calculated LADD value in indoor and outdoor air samples ranged in the scale of 0.27–3.42 and 0.16–1.88 μg/kg/d respectively. Concentrations of all indoor and outdoor samples surpassed the cancer risk (CR) limit for benzene but were below HQ (<1) for non-cancer risk impact. In conclusion, areas within petroleum stations and motor vehicles workshops may pose hazardous cancer risk and non-cancer risk through BTEXs exposure to workers and non-workers.