Abstract
Photocopying machines have been in existence for forty years: however, few people recognize their potential to create a human health hazard by ozone emission. This study was designed to determine the photocopier's emission rate and evaluate tile workers' exposure while making copies. A mass balance model is applied to the work environment to predict the time needed to reach tile American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienist's (ACGIH) Threshold Limit Value-Ceiling (TLV-C) of 0.1 ppm, or 196 []. The results of this research found that the rate of emission varies from 2 to 366 ug/[]. This results in breathing-level ozone concentrations of about 4-40 Ug/M3 for the operator. This exposure level is far less than the TLV-C setting by ACGIH. There seems to be a significant trend between different makes and models. Only one location was identified as having ozone levels high enough to require implementation of engineering controls such as increasing the number of air changes per hour. The result of model simulation in one location indicates that the time needed to reach the TLV-C is dependent on the number of running machines, their rate of emission, room size and air change rate.
Lai, Chen-Fu (1993). Ozone determination in different copying centers. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1993 -THESIS -L1855.