Fugitive emissions of volatile organic compounds from the pharmaceutical industry in China based on leak detection and repair monitoring, atmospheric prediction, and health risk assessment

Abstract

In this study, a leak detection and repair program was conducted on five pharmaceutical factories in China to analyze the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emission characteristics of leaking equipment. The results indicated that the monitored components were mainly flanges, accounting for 70.23% of the total, and open-ended lines were the components most prone to leaks. The overall percentage of VOCs emissions reduction after the repair was 20.50%, and flanges were the most repairable components, with an average emission reduction of 47.5 kg/a for each flange. In addition, atmospheric predictions were conducted for the VOCs emissions before and after the repair of the components at the research factories. The atmospheric predictions showed that emissions from equipment and facilities have a noticeable impact on VOCs concentration at boundary and the emissions are positively correlated with the pollution source strength. The hazard quotient of the investigated factories was lower than the acceptable risk level set by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The quantitative assessment of the lifetime cancer risk showed that the risk levels of factories A, C, and D exceeded the EPA’s acceptable risk level, and the on-site workers were exposed to inhalation cancer risk.

Keywords:

• Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
• leak detection and repair (LDAR)
• atmospheric prediction
• health risk
• pharmaceutical industry

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the support from the five pharmaceutical enterprises in this research.

Author contributions

Fang Zhao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Visualization. Yao Peng: Writing – review & editing, Project administration. Lin Huang: Writing – original draft, Visualization, Investigation. Ziwei Li: Writing – original draft, Visualization. Weinan Tu: Writing – original draft. Biao Wu: Supervision.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability statements

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Key Laboratory for Urban Atmospheric Environment Integrated Observation & Pollution Prevention and Control of Chongqing but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of Key Laboratory for Urban Atmospheric Environment Integrated Observation & Pollution Prevention and Control of Chongqing.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China [2019YFC0214402].