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

Shun Cheng Lee, Wai Ming Li, Lo Yin Chan

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

223 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Indoor air quality (IAQ) of a restaurant has increasingly received a lot of public concerns in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, there is limited data about the IAQ of Hong Kong restaurants. In order to characterize the current IAQ of 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 CO2at restaurants with gas stoves for food cooking in dining areas exceeded the range from 40 to 60% indoor CO2concentrations at restaurants without gas stoves in dining areas. The average levels of PM10and PM2.5at the Korean barbecue style restaurant were as high as 1442 and 1167 μg/m3, respectively. At the Korean barbecue and Chinese hot pot restaurants, the levels of PM2.5accounted for 80-93% of their respective PM10concentrations. The 1-h average levels of CO observed at Korean barbecue style and hot pot restaurants were 15100 and 8000 μg/m3, respectively. Relatively high concentrations of CO2, CO, PM10, PM2.5benzene, 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 with soup in a hot pot could generate considerable quantities of air pollutants.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)181-193
Number of pages13
JournalScience of the Total Environment
Volume279
Issue number1-3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Nov 2001

Keywords

  • Dim sum meal
  • Frying food
  • Hot-pot cooking
  • Indoor air quality (IAQ)
  • Restaurant
  • Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Environmental Chemistry
  • General Environmental Science

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