• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.21 no.1 s.23
• /
• pp.132-151
• /
• 1988

This study was conducted to establish the control program for preventing unfavorable health effects of nitrogen dioxide($NO_2$) exposure in homes by preparing the fundamental data for evaluation of relation-ships between $NO_2$ levels and influencing factors through measurements of indoor-outdoor $NO_2$ levels and personal $NO_2$ exposures for housewives with questionnaire survey on 172 homes in Pusan area from April to June, 1987 $NO_2$ measurements were made by using diffusion tube samplers(Palmes tube $NO_2$ sampler) for one week at 4 sites in homes ; kitchen(KIT), bedroom(BED), living room(LIV), outdoor(OUT) and near the collar of housewives(personal exposure livel, PNO). The details of questionnaire were number of household members(FAM), number of regular smokers (SMOKER), daily number of meals eaten(MEAL), type of housing units(HOUSE), location of house with distance from the heavy traffic roads as walking time(DIST), and of kitchen(KAREA), kind of cooking fuels(FUEL), cooking time of each meal(CTIME), usage of kitchen fan for cooking(FAN), type of heating facilities(HEAT) and so on of subject homes. The Obtained results were as fellows : 1) The mean $NO_2$ level was significantly higher at indoors than outdoors(p<0.01) and the kitchen $NO_2$ level was the highest with $33.7{\pm}13.6ppb$(9.5-81.5ppb). The mean personal exposure level of $NO_2$ for housewives was $20.6{\pm}8.8ppb$(3.1-46.9ppb). 2) The mean indoor $NO_2$ level was significantly higher in the group of household members above 5 than below 4(p<0.05), in detached dwellings than apartments(p<0.001), within 5 minutes of distance than over 5 minutes(p<0.001), in the group of unusing fan(p<0.001), in the group of longer cooking time(p<0.001), and it was in order of coal briquette, gas, electricity and oil by kind of cooking fuels(p<0.05). 3) Variables showing significant correlation(p<0.001) with indoor $NO_2$ level were kitchen $NO_2$ level(r=0.8677), cooking time(r=0.5921), outdoor $NO_2$ level(r=0.5192), personal $NO_2$ exposure level(r=0.4615), usage of kitchen fan(r=0.3573) and location of house(r=-0.2988) 4) As a result of multiple regression analysis, the most significant influencing variable to the kitchen $NO_2$ level was cooking time[KIT=$-0.378{\pm}11.772$(CTIME)+0.298(OUT)+3.102(FAN)], it was kitchen $NO_2$ level to the indoor $NO_2$ level[IND=6.996+0.458(KIT)+0.230(OUT)-1.127(KAREA)], and it was indoor $NO_2$ level to the personal $NO_2$ exposure level[PNO=15.562+0.729(IND)-4.542(DIST)-0.200(KIT)] 5) It was recognized that aritificial ventilation in the kitchen, suppression of unnecessary combustion and replacement of cooking fuel, as much as possible, were effective means for decreasing indoor $NO_2$ levels in homes.

• Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.319-332
• /
• 2016

Micropollutants are often discharged to surface waters through untreated wastewater from sewage treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants. The presence of micropollutants in surface waters is a serious concern because surface water is usually provided to water treatment plants (WTP) to produce drinking water. Many micropollutants can withstand conventional WTP systems and stay in tap water. In particular, pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors are examples of micropollutants that are detected at the drinking water, ppb, or even ppb level. A variety of techniques and processes, especially advanced oxidation processes, have been applied to remove micropollutants from water to control drinking water contamination. This paper reviews recent researches on the occurrence and removal of micropollutants in the aquatic environments and during water treatment processes.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.71-77
• /
• 1997

Sulfonamides, a therapeutically important group of antimicrobial drugs, are widely used to treat and prevent the acute systemic and skin infections in dairy cattle. They also pose an economic hazard through inhibition of growth of dairy starter cultures. This study was carried out to compare four screening methods for detection of sulfamethazine in milk and determine the positive milk sample by HPLC method. Sulfamethazine was used to spike at five levels of sulfamethazine. The Lac-Tek test and CharmII test were also consistent better than TTCII test and Delvo SP test in sulfamethazine detection. Analysis probabilities of obtaining a positive response with TTCII test and Delvo SP test assay at 50 ppb sulfamethazine level in milk samples were only 14%, 42% each. Whereas using the Lac-Tek test and CharmII test would have resulted in 100% identification of the five levels. Determination of sufamethazine using the HPLC method in the spiked milk were 10.64, 19.30, 30.76,38.83 and 50.23 ppb, respectively.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.79-86
• /
• 2002

Aflatoxin is a secondary fungal metabolite and is a public health hazard because it is a human carcinogenic and has many deleterious effects in men and animals. Rice is one of the better substrates far the fungus which can produce aflatoxins. This study was performed to investigate aflatoxin reduction during the cooking and processing of rice. Aflatoxin was produced by Aspergillus parasiticus ATCC 15517 on well-milled rice (Japonica type) at the level of 13.2 ppb. Cooked rice, rice cakes (baek-sol-gi, plain steamed rice bread), fermented rice (sikhye, sweet rice beverage), and popped rice were prepared from the aflatoxin-contaminated rice. Aflatoxin content in the samples was determined by high performance liquid chromatography. The total aflatoxin level was decreased to 46.9% in the cooked rice, 85.6% in the rice cakes, 11.4% in the fermented rice, and 7.6% in the popped rice, respectively (p.0.05). This reduction brought the level of aflatoxins down to below the Standard and Specification of korea (10 ppb), except for the rice cakes. These results indicate that washing, steaming, fermentation, and popping of rice was helpful in reducing the aflatoxin level in the rice and the most helpful factors were high temperature & high pressure. More research is needed to understand why the preparation of rice cakes did not reduce the level of aflatoxin as much as the other cooking methods.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.403-411
• /
• 2023

Objectives: Formalin is used as an anthelmintic in farms where flounder are raised. In this study, we aim to identify formaldehyde exposure levels for aquaculture industry workers and provide basic data for managing formaldehyde exposure. Methods: Exposure levels of formaldehyde in the air, including formalin spraying operations, were assessed separately for personal and area samples. In addition, considering the formalin administration method, dermal exposure to the hands was estimated when administering the chemical, and dermal exposure to the legs during water tank work was estimated by collecting water in the water tank and evaluating the amount of formaldehyde remaining. Finally, the respiratory exposure level and the estimated dermal exposure level were added to derive the total exposure level and compared with the maximum allowable human dose. Results: As a result of the airborne evaluation, the formaldehyde concentration of the worker (1 person) who performed the formalin spraying and flounder sorting was 33.61 ppb, and the arithmetic mean of formaldehyde concentrations of the workers (3 people) who only performed the flounder sorting was 3.28 ppb (range: 2.25-4.89 ppb). In the case of dermal exposure, when spraying formalin once, the amount was estimated to be 0.33-2.62 mg when wearing protective gear and 3.27-26.12 mg when not wearing it. Conclusions: There was a difference in the formaldehyde exposure level of workers depending on their operation of handling formalin and whether or not protective gear was worn. In particular, because the level of formaldehyde exposure due to dermal exposure can be significant, there is a need to improve formalin administration methods in a way that avoids skin contact as much as possible.

• Analytical Science and Technology
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.264-273
• /
• 1997

Anodic oxidation reaction was applied to remove trihalomethanes in an aqueous solution. Each component was determined by using solid phase microextraction(SPME) fiber and GC-ECD. Anodic and cathodic compartments were separated in order to protect contaminants and connected by $KNO_3$-agar bridge. The calibration graphs of the 6 THM components were shown good linearlity from a few ppb up to a few hundreds ppb concentration level. Anodes such as platinum(Pt), titanium(Ti). zircornium(Zr), titanium metal coated with iridium(Ti-Ir), and glassy carbon coated with mixed valence ruthenium(mv Ru) were tried to remove the THMs at different potentials. The best result was obtained on the Ti-Ir anode applied 9 volts DC. The electrode could effectively remove almost all the THM components from the stirring solution within about 1.5 hours. The glassy carbon electrode coated with mixed valence ruthenium showed excellent removing effect at the begining, but the maximum removing level was remained at 60% probably due to the destruction of the electrode surface. The concentration of chloroform, however, tends to be increased due to the electrode reaction producing the component at the condition.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.57-65
• /
• 2003

Livestock farming is one of several industries that have faced criticism because of its impact on the water quality, soil contamination and air pollution. The livestock feces can cause some environmental problems. The best way to treat the feces is to recycle the manure as an organic fertilizer after fermentation or composting. This study was carried out to investigate the characteristics of composting of manure in several composting conditions. The variations of physicochemical characteristics of each compost piles containing different level of air volume were analyzed throughout the composting period. In this study, pigs manure compost piles mixed with saw dust were composted in 110L of laboratory scale plastic vessels and $1.5m^3$ of small cubic wooden composting vessels for 60days. The compost piles were ventilated continuously with air pump throughout the composting duration. The air volume ventilated into the piles was regulated by chock valve attached to the inlet pipe. The ventilation level was adjusted by 20, 50, 100, 150 and $200L/m^3/mim$, respectively. The highest temperature of the compost increased to $72^{\circ}C$ during composting period. After 20days from beginning of fermentation, concentrations of $H_2S$, $CH_3SH$, DMS and DMDS generated from compost piles were 29, 16, 6 and 5ppb in blow in state compost pile, conversely, in blow out state compost pile, the parameters were 32, 24, 15 and 14ppb, respectively.

• Analytical Science and Technology
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.299-305
• /
• 1999

The electrolyte cathode atomic glow discharge (ELCAD) is a new plasma source for direct determination of trace heavy metals in drinking and waste water. ELCAD has been successfully developed for on-line monitoring of heavy metals, however, shows difficulty to measure mercury. In this study, ELCAD has been modified to apply the atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) for the direct determination of trace elements of mercury in flowing water.The fundamental characteristics of this new types of plasma source have been investigated and found that the pH of the solution, discharge voltage, and current are most important factors.The absorbance of 1.0 ppm Hg standard solution increases as pH of the solution increases from pH 1.0 to 3.0.However, % RSD of the absorbance also increases as the pH of solution increasesdue to plasma unstability.The detection limits of the standard solution of pH 1.5 and pH 3.0 are about 40 ppb and 10 ppb level, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.574-589
• /
• 2006

Although concentrations of hazardous air pollutants(HAPs) are very low in the atmosphere, a growing attention has been paid on such compounds due to their high toxicity and bioaccumulation potentials into human body. In order to control and manage the amount of these materials in ambient air, it is necessary to construct monitoring system of them and to know the current concentration level of HAPs above all. In this work, a wide range of HAPs has been measured in metropolitan area to recognize the present state of HAPs in this area. The measured concentration of VOCs was higher in order of Jeonnongdong, Jeongdong, and Yangsuri. The regional difference of VOCs concentration was also highest in spring. Its total VOCs was ranged from $15.17{\sim}41.45$ ppb. Benzene $0.43{\sim}2.32$ ppb showed similar concentration level with the result of previous researches in Seoul. This value is a little higher than the average concentration 0.92 ppb for national ambient air quality standards in Japan. The concentration of aldehydes in this study was lower than those of other researches. Previous works in Seoul metropolitan area showed that the concentration of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde were higher than 5 ppb. The concentration of gaseous and particulate PAHs was high in order of winter, spring, and summer More than 90% of PAHs with low molecular weight such as 2-rings and 3-rings PAHs existed in gas phase. On the other hands, PAHs with high molecular weight more than 5-rings PAHs almost existed in particulate. In spring, the concentration of gaseous PAHs was 24.38 $ng/m^3$ in Jeongdong. Among the particulate PAHs, the concentrations of Naphthalene, Benzo(b)fluoranthene, and Benzo(g, h, i)perylene were higher than others. Especially, the concentration of Benzo(a)pyrene, a important carcinogenic pollutant, was highest in winter 0.5 $ng/m^3$ and ranged from 0.03 to 0.3 $ng/m^3$ in spring and summer, which is lower than the monitoring result in 90's. These components were mainly originated from the vehicle exhaust or heating equipment use.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.171-180
• /
• 2016

This study was to evaluate the change in characteristics of concentration of ozone after exposure to high energy radiation in linac room. Background ozone concentration of linac room was measured and compared to ozone concentration around linac room. Background ozone concentration of linac room was mean $17.4{\pm}7.9ppb$. It was 50% of the ozone concentration($36.8{\pm}22.3ppb$) around linac room(p<0.05). The concentration of ozone after exposure to high energy radiation in linac room was elevated to double of background ozone level, intensity after exposure. with exposure time concentration of ozone increased proportionally. It showed maximum level at 130~180seconds and slowed a tendency to saturate. It required more than 10 minutes for ozone concentration in linac room to drop to ozone concentration around linac room. The concentration of ozone after exposure to high energy radiation is high enough to cause specific physical symptoms, such as acute dyspnea or chest pain due to dry cough. Exposure to high concentration of ozone in sealed linac room can aggravate pulmonary disease, so special attention is needed.