Cutting down on the ozone and SOA formation as well as health risks of VOCs emitted from e-waste dismantlement by integration technique

Elimination of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the e-waste dismantling industry by an integration technique of spray tower-electrostatic precipitation-photocatalysis was conducted to investigate its application possibility for reducing formation of O-3 and secondary organic aerosols (SOAs) as well as exposure risk. Results revealed the average 5.4 x 10(2) mu g m(-3) of VOCs with the top two groups being aromatic hydrocarbons (AHs, 55.93%) and halogenated hydrocarbons (HHs, 33.33%), contributing to 1.3 x 10(3) and 3.0 x 10(4) mu g m(-3) of the O-3 and SOA (OFP and SOAFP) formation potential, respectively. Furthermore, 86.47% of OFP and 99.87% of SOAFP were ascribed to AHs, in which toluene ranked first (35.30% and 48.07%). The highest removal efficiency (76.92%) for VOCs by the integrated technique resulted in excellent prevention efficiencies of OFP (71.54%) and SOAFP (80.62%). Occupational cancer risk assessment found that HHs (62.63%) and AHs (36.93%) were the top two contributors. After the treatment by the integrated technique, 55.44% of the total risk index was reduced with the accumulation of few low-concentrated and more toxic AHs (e.g. 6.6 mu g m(-3) benzene on average). All results suggest that controlling AH and HH emissions from the e-waste dismantling source could efficiently prevent atmospheric secondary pollution and human exposure risk to industrial emission.