Outdoor benzene highly impacts indoor concentrations globally

The Science of the Total Environment
Cong LiuJingguang Li

Abstract

Benzene is a carcinogen. Exposure to benzene severely threatens people's health. While its indoor sources such as paint and solvent have been tightly regulated as a result of its inclusion into indoor air standards globally, its outdoor emission from traffic and industry is less addressed. Since human's exposure to benzene mainly occurs indoors, how outdoor benzene affects indoor concentrations is a critical issue, but not well discussed yet. This study summarized 118 pairs of outdoor-indoor measurement of benzene concentrations mainly published in the past five years. We found that the outdoor benzene concentrations measured in developing countries exceed 5 μg/m3, an annual concentration limit recommended by Europe Union, more often than developed ones. It implies a worse benzene pollution situation in the developing places, probably due to strong emission from traffic and industry. The outdoor/indoor concentration ratio is 0.69 and 0.84 for the developing and developed places, respectively. It indicates a significant, if not dominant, role of outdoor benzene in formulating indoor concentrations over indoor sources. Controlling outdoor benzene emission is therefore highlighted. Actions should be taken to regulate benzene emiss...Continue Reading

Citations

Jun 3, 2021·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Qifan Liu, Jonathan P D Abbatt
Aug 21, 2021·Journal of Hazardous Materials·Biyuan LiuHaibao Huang

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