Abstract
A new approach for estimating emission rates from continuous concentration data was developed and applied to formaldehyde measurements collected during 25 embalmings. The instantaneous emission rate was estimated from the contaminant mass balance, which set the rate of emission equal to the sum of the rate of buildup in the room and the rate of removal in the exhaust flow. The generation rate of each specific work task was modeled using an equation that considered both the buildup and decay of the generation rate. Each term of the full modeling equation corresponded to a work task or event that occurred during the embalmings. The expected formaldehyde contribution of individual work tasks or events was then estimated by integrating each term using the gamma function. The work tasks or events with the largest formaldehyde contributions were aspiration of viscera after treatment with cavity fluid, embalming fluid spill, application of osmotic gel, and trocar cavity infusion. This analysis showed the relative importance of individual work tasks or events as contributors to the workroom formaldehyde concentration. This reconstruction of emission rates from concentration data is a general approach that may be used to proceed more effectively with control efforts in other processes where continuous data are available from reasonably well–mixed rooms.