Health risk assessment of formaldehyde released from several Chinese dishes cooking activities

Abstract

To study the effect of Chinese dishes cooking activities on the health risk for domestic cook, numerical simulations are executed under different air flow rates for three oil-based Chinese dishes cooking activities. The concentration of formaldehyde in respiratory area during cooking process is obviously influenced by the cooking dishes. And the effect of air flow rate of range hood on the formaldehyde capture is not as significant as that of the cooking method. The predicated results show that the formaldehyde concentration is 4.5-5.5, 2.8-3.6 and 1.2-1.5 times of the prescribed limit when cooking the dishes of stir-fried mutton, pan-fried chicken with onion and deep-fried pork, respectively. The high air flow rate is recommended for improving formaldehyde capture efficiency (CE) of range hood. The potentially benefit effects induced by higher air flow rate is reliable in the cooking activity of stir-fry mutton. Using high air flow rate of 19m3/min can reduce the risk by 11.86% compared with using low air flow rate of 10m3/min. Low air flow rate is more suitable for cooking activities with low release rate of cooking oil fumes (COFs), in order to better protect the health of cooks.