Ambient air quality at five busy petrol pumps in Kolkata, India is monitored for mono-aromatic hydrocarbons and carbonyls. Among the measured volatile organic compounds, toluene and formaldehyde were the most abundant. Source apportionment using chemical mass balance identified exhaust from roadway and refueling as the major sources. Monitoring of the service stationworkers revealed that the average exposure level for benzene and toluene were 3.9 and 5.5 fold higher than the ambient air. The integrated lifetimecancer risks due to benzene, ethylbenzene, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde and the overall hazard index due to chronic exposure to some hazardous volatile organic compounds are 1.48E-04 and 2.3 indicating the probability ofcancer as well as chronic health effect on the workers exposed. (A) Reprinted with permission from Elsevier.
Abstract