Indoor air quality at restaurants with different styles of cooking in metropolitan Hong Kong

Indoor air quality (IAQ) of a restaurant has increasingly received a lot of public concerns in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, there is limited data about t he IAQ of Hong Kong restaurants. In order to characterize the current IAQ o f local restaurants, four restaurants in metropolitan Hong Kong including a Korean barbecue style restaurant, a Chinese hot pot restaurant, a Chinese dim sum restaurant and a Western canteen were selected for this study. The results of this study showed that the mean concentrations of CO2 at restaur ants with gas stoves for food cooking in dining areas exceeded the range fr om 40 to 60% indoor CO2 concentrations at restaurants without gas stoves in dining areas. The average levels of PM10 and PM2.5 at the Korean barbecue style restaurant were as high as 1442 and 1167 mug/m(3), respectively. At t he Korean barbecue and Chinese hot pot restaurants, the levels of PM2.5 acc ounted for 80-93% of their respective PM10 concentrations. The 1-h average levels of CO observed at Korean barbecue style and hot pot restaurants were 15100 and 8000 mug/m(3), respectively. Relatively high concentrations of C O2 CO, PM10, PM2.5 benzene, toluene, methylene chloride and chloroform were measured in the dining areas of the Korean barbecue style and the Chinese hot pot restaurants. The operations of pan-frying food and boiling food wit h soup in a hot pot could generate considerable quantities of air pollutant s. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.