Potential for Reducing Indoor Styrene Exposure from Copied Paper through Use of Low-Emitting Toners

Abstract

Tests were conducted using 53-L dynamic chambers to determine airborne styrene emission rates over time from freshly copied paper. Copies were produced on a single photocopier using two toners manufactured for this copier but having different styrene contents. The resulting emission models were used to predict whether indoor styrene concentrations resulting from copied paper in a typical office might be significantly reduced by use of a low-emitting toner for a given copier. The styrene emissions were best represented by either a 3rd-order decay model or by a power law model having an exponent between 0.3 and 0.5 (R 2 ϭ 0.94 -0.99). The two toners resulted in copied paper having significantly different styrene emissions (p Ͻ 0.01), with unit mass emissions over 1000 hr being nine times greater with the higheremitting toner. But copied paper is predicted to produce peak indoor styrene concentrations in a typical office no more than 1% of the World Health Organization healthbased guideline. Thus, for the toners considered here, indoor styrene exposures from copied paper appear to be too limited to provide incentive for switching to the lower-emitting toner. The ability to generalize these conclusions is limited by the fact that only one copier and two toners could be tested.

Spatial and temporal variations in atmospheric VOCs, NO 2 , SO 2 , and O 3 concentrations at a heavily industrialized region in Western Turkey, and assessment of the carcinogenic risk levels of benzene

“…There is a styrene plant in the Petkim complex, which produces styrene monomer for other plants in the complex, but it was not operational during our sampling campaigns. Factor 2 scores were high in residential areas probably because of the emissions from styrene sources, such as, new plastic materials that are produced from styrene monomer (Lithner et al, 2009), thermal degradation of used plastic ware that contains styrene monomer (Miller et al, 1994), and photocopiers (Henschel et al, 2001). High styrene emissions and a similar styrene factor were also found at an urban site in Bursa (Yurdakul, 2014).…”