ESTIMATING THE CONTRIBUTION OF INDIVIDUAL WORK TASKS TO ROOM CONCENTRATION - METHOD APPLIED TO EMBALMING

A new approach for estimating emission rates from continuous concentra tion data was developed and applied to formaldehyde measurements colle cted during 25 embalmings. The instantaneous emission rate was estimat ed from the contaminant mass balance, which set the rate of emission e qual to the sum of the rate of buildup in the room and the rate of rem oval in the exhaust flow. The generation rate of each specific work ta sk was modeled using an equation that considered both the buildup and decay of the generation rare. Each term of the full modeling equation corresponded to a work task or vent that occurred during the embalming s. The expected formaldehyde contribution of individual work tasks or events was then estimated by integrating each term using the gamma fun ction. The work tasks or events with the largest formaldehyde contribu tions were aspiration of viscera after treatment with cavity fluid, em balming fluid spill, application of osmotic gel, and trocar cavity inf usion. This analysis showed the relative importance of individual work tasks or events as contributors to the workroom formaldehyde concentr ation. This reconstruction of emission rates from concentration data i s a general approach that may be used to proceed more effectively with control efforts in other processes where continuous data are availabl e from reasonably well-mixed rooms.