Scented Candles and incenses as indoor air fresheners : health risk assessment from real emission measurements

Scented Candles and incenses as indoor air fresheners : health risk assessment from real emission measurements Guillaume Karr, Alexandre Albinet, E. Quivet, D. Buiron, François Maupetit, M. Nicolas To cite this version: Guillaume Karr, Alexandre Albinet, E. Quivet, D. Buiron, François Maupetit, et al.. Scented Candles and incenses as indoor air fresheners : health risk assessment from real emission measurements. 14. International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate (Indoor Air 2016), Jul 2016, Ghent, Belgium. ฀ineris-01863023฀ HAL Id: ineris-01863023 https://hal-ineris.archives-ouvertes.fr/ineris-01863023 Submitted on 28 Aug 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Scented candles and incenses as indoor air fresheners: health risk assessment from real emission measurements G. Karr1,*, A. Albinet1,*, D. Buiron2, E. Quivet2, F. Maupetit3 and M. Nicolas3 INERIS (Institut National de l’Environnement et des risques), Parc Technologique Alata, BP 2, 60550 Verneuil-en-Halatte, France 2 Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Laboratoire de Chimie de l’Environnement, UMR 7376, 13331 Marseille, France 3 CSTB (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment), Saint Martin d’Hères, France 1 * Corresponding emails:guillaume.karr@ineris.fr; alexandre.albinet@ineris.fr SUMMARY As part of the EBENE research project, a health risk assessment was performed for two types of widely used combustible air fresheners: scented candles and incenses. The assessment was based on physiochemical characterization of the particulate and gaseous emissions of 9 scented candles and 10 incenses, tested under real conditions in an experimental house MARIA (CSTB), combined with a national phone survey about household uses. Results obtained showed that chronic exposures could exceed usual health reference values for a reasonable-worst-case type scenario. Substances of concern included PM (particulate matter), benzene, acrolein and, to a lesser extent, formaldehyde, for incenses, and formaldehyde, acrolein and, to a lesser extent, PM, for scented candles. For all of these substances, exceedances were also identified for short term exposures (1 hour). These results suggest that good practice – use reasonably, ventilate the room after use, avoid direct inhalation of any smoke, etc. – and reducing the emissions of high-emissivity products could be necessary to insure a safe use. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS These results could lead to health risk management actions, e.g. public information campaign, regulatory restriction on composition or emissions, label of emission levels. KEYWORDS Health risk, Incense, Candle 1 INTRODUCTION Air fresheners are one of the specific indoor emission sources of air pollutants. Potential associated health risks need to be further understood. As part of the EBENE research project, health risk assessment was performed for two types of widely used air fresheners - scented candles and incenses – in order to evaluate whether household uses could be of concern. 2 MATERIALS/METHODS The emissions of 9 candles and 10 incenses were tested under real conditions, in an experimental house. A detailed physicochemical characterization of the emissions was performed using on-line instrumentation (HR-AMS, SMPS, PTR-MS, TEOM, TEOM-FDMS, Aethalometer 7, ozone and NOx analyzers) and off-line chemical analysis for both, gaseous (PUF and adsborbent tubes) and particulate phases (filters). Targeted pollutants included PM (mass, chemical composition and size distribution), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs including PAHs, nitrated PAHs and oxygenated PAHs), NOx and black carbon (BC). Based on the available knowledge and on results from a national phone survey performed in 2014 about the French household uses (approximately 1 000 people), standard exposure scenarios were elaborated. They included a mean exposure scenario (mean usage in France) and a reasonable worst case scenario (reasonable increase of the mean exposure). For each tested substance, existing toxicity reference values (TRV) were collected among international databases, for both short-term and long-term inhalation exposures. Exposure assessment was discussed for each scenario, tested product and substance. The obtained exposures were compared to the chosen long-term TRV, to highlight potential chronic risks. The maximum 1h-exposure was also compared to the chosen short-term TRV. 3 RESULTS For each substance under the mean exposure scenario, no exposure exceeded the usual health reference values. Furthermore, multi-substances exposures did not exceed reference values either. Consequently, our results suggest that no situation of concern is expected. For the reasonable-worst-case scenario, exposures could exceed usual health reference values. Substances of concern included PM, benzene, acrolein and, to a lesser extent, formaldehyde, for incenses, and formaldehyde, acrolein and, to a lesser extent, PM, for scented candles. For the same substances, exceedances were also identified for short term exposures. 4 DISCUSSION These results give a complementary perspective to the results of the European project EPHECT (Trantallidi et al., 2015). Here, this study was focused on scented candles and incenses, specific to French uses, based on actual indoor air concentrations (experimental values instead of modeled concentrations), for a large set of substances and for health reference values selected under national standards. These results suggest that good practice – use reasonably, ventilate the room after use, avoid direct inhalation of any smoke, etc. – and reducing the emissions of high-emissivity products could be necessary to insure a safe use. 5 CONCLUSIONS Substances of concern were identified for both incenses and scented candles, including PM, benzene, acrolein and formaldehyde. The same strategy, combining experiments in real conditions and a phone survey, could be implemented in order to assess the health risks of any other usual consumer product. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors would like to thank the Ministère de l’Ecologie, du Développement Durable et de l’Energie (MEDDE – DGPR) and the Agence de l’Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l’Energie (ADEME) for their financial support through the EBENE project (APR “CORTEA” 2014, grant agreement n°1462C0038). Authors would like to thank Robin Aujay-Plouzeau, Laura Crève, François Kany, Jerôme Beaumont (INERIS), Brice Temime-Roussel (AixMarseille Université), Priscilla Thiry and Gwendal Loisel (CSTB), for their help and involvement in the experiments and chemical analyses. 6 REFERENCES Trantallidi, M., Dimitroulopoulou, C., Wolkoff, P., Kephalopoulos, S. and Carrer, P. 2015. Science of The Total Environment. EPHECT III: Health risk assessment of exposure to household consumer products; 536, 903-913.