Abstract

The scope of this work is the evaluation of the non-carcinogenic occupational risk related to foundry emissions, focusing on the category of workers involved in olfactometric assessments. Odor pollution from industrial activities such as foundries is a serious environmental concern. Sensorial techniques (e.g. dynamic olfactometry, EN13725:2003) currently represent the preferred method for odor emission characterization. During olfactometric analyses, human assessors are directly exposed to the odor at increasing concentrations, thus requiring the assessment of the associated exposure risk to guarantee workers’ safety. This paper presents an investigation aiming to produce an inventory of compounds emitted from foundries together with their odor thresholds and toxicological limits (TLVs), with the final objective to propose a procedure for ensuring workers’ safety during olfactometric analyses. Looking at the database resulting from this study, among the >100 compounds emitted by foundries, 8 have a maximum concentration above their TLV. Among those, ammonia, H₂S, phenol, toluene and trimethylamine, produce an odor stimulus before they reach a toxic concentration, thus not representing a risk for olfactometric workers. Benzene, formaldehyde and SO₂ are identified as the most critical compounds because they may reach toxic concentrations in foundry emissions, and they start being perceived by humans above their TLV. The proposed procedure entails a minimum dilution factor of 27’000 to be applied to odor samples analyzed by olfactometry, which however might result inapplicable in practical cases, thus pointing out the necessity to adopt chemical measurements to investigate specifically the concentration of the most critical compounds identified in this study.

摘要

这项工作的范围是评估与铸造排放相关的非致癌职业风险，重点是参与嗅觉评估的工人类别。来自铸造厂等工业活动的气味污染是一个严重的环境问题。感官技术（例如动态嗅觉测量法，EN13725:2003）目前代表了气味排放表征的首选方法。在嗅觉分析过程中，人类评估人员会直接暴露在浓度不断增加的气味中，因此需要评估相关的暴露风险以保证工人的安全。本文介绍了一项调查，旨在编制铸造厂排放的化合物清单及其气味阈值和毒理学限值 (TLV)，最终目标是提出一个程序，以在嗅觉分析期间确保工人的安全。查看本研究产生的数据库，在铸造厂排放的 100 多种化合物中，有 8 种的最大浓度高于其 TLV。其中，氨、H₂ S、苯酚、甲苯和三甲胺在达到有毒浓度之前会产生气味刺激，因此不会对嗅觉测量人员构成风险。苯、甲醛和 SO ₂被确定为最关键的化合物，因为它们可能会在铸造排放中达到有毒浓度，并且它们开始被人类感知到超过其 TLV。提议的程序需要将 27'000 的最小稀释系数应用于通过嗅觉测定法分析的气味样本，但这可能导致在实际情况中不适用，因此指出有必要采用化学测量来专门研究最关键化合物的浓度在本研究中确定。