Quantifying trace elements in the emitted particulate matter during cooking and health risk assessment

Particulate matter (PM) measurements were conducted during heating corn oil, heating corn oil mixed with the table salt and heating low fat ground beef meat using a PTFE-coated aluminum pan on an electric stove with low ventilation. The main objectives of this study were to measure the size segregated mass concentrations, emission rates, and fluxes of 24 trace elements emitted during heating cooking oil or oil with salt and cooking meat. Health risk assessments were performed based on the resulting exposure to trace elements from such cooking activities. The most abundant elements (significantly different from zero) were Ba (24.4 ug m⁻³) during grilling meat and Ti during heating oil with salt (24.4 ug m⁻³). The health assessment indicates that the cooking with an electric stove with poor ventilation leading to chronic exposures may pose the risk of significant adverse health effects. Carcinogenic risk exceeded the acceptable level (target cancer risk 1 × 10⁻⁶, US EPA 2015) by four orders of magnitude, while non-carcinogenic risk exceeded the safe level (target HQ = 1, US EPA 2015) by a factor of 5–20. Cr and Co were the primary contributors to the highest carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks, respectively.