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Coke workers’ exposure to volatile organic compounds in northern China: a case study in Shanxi Province

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Abstract

China is the largest coke producer and exporter in the world, and it has been a major concern that large populations of coke workers are exposed to the associated air pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This study aimed to preliminarily quantify the potential exposure to VOCs emitted from two representative coking plants and assess the potential health risks. Air samples from various stages of coking were collected from the topside of coke ovens and various plant areas and then analyzed for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX). The time-weighted average (TWA) concentrations were used to quantify the coke oven emission (COE). The TWA concentrations for benzene were 705.6 and 290.4 μg m−3 in plant A and plant B, respectively, which showed a higher exposure level than those reported in other countries. COE varied on the topside of coke ovens during charging and pushing processes, from 268.3 to 1197.7 μg m−3 in plant A and 85.4–489.7 μg m−3 in plant B. Our results indicate that benzene exposure from the diffusion of tar distillation also exerts significant health risks and thus should also be concerned. Charging and pushing activities accounted for nearly 70 % of benzene dose at the topside, and the benzene exposure risks to the coke oven workers in China were higher than those reported by US EPA. Compared to the reported emission sources, the weight-based ratios of average benzene to toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene in different COE air samples showed unique characteristic profiles. Based on the B/T ratios from this work and from literatures on several major cities in northern China, it was evident that COE contributes significantly to the severe pollution of VOCs in the air of northern China. Future more rigorous studies are warranted to characterize VOC emission profiles in the stack gas of the coking processes in China.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the sampling guides by Xiaozhou Fan from the Shanxi Province Environmental Monitoring Central Station, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41172316), the Key Project of the National Ministry of Education of China (No. 211026), and Shanxi Province Science Foundation for Youths (No. 2011021025-2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environment and Safety, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Qiusheng He & Yulong Yan

  2. State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Yanli Zhang & Xinming Wang

  3. School of Earth and Atmospheric Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

    Yuhang Wang

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  1. Qiusheng He
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Correspondence to Qiusheng He.

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He, Q., Yan, Y., Zhang, Y. et al. Coke workers’ exposure to volatile organic compounds in northern China: a case study in Shanxi Province. Environ Monit Assess 187, 359 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-015-4582-7

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