The character Don Draper once said on the TV show mad men that “Happiness is the smell of a new car.” Well, a study that was just published in Cell Reports Physical Science I found something besides happiness in a new car that can make you say “What smell?” That’s because what you’re smelling may consist of formaldehyde, benzene, and other airborne chemicals that can irritate your skin, eyes, nose, and throat, and even cause cancer.
Yes, a research team from the Beijing Institute of Technology (Haimei Wang, Dongdong Guo, Weirong Zhang, Rui Zhang, Ying Gao, Xuankai Zhang, Wei Liu, Wei Wu, Lihua Sun, Xuefei Yu, Jing Zhao and Jianyin Xiong ) and Harvard School of Public Health TH Chan (Shaodan Huang, Jack M. Wolfson, and Petros Koutrakis) revealed that the interior of a new mid-size sport utility vehicle (SUV) plug-in hybrid vehicle does not pass the smell test. . They found levels of various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that exceed Chinese national safety standards in this SUV that had been manufactured the previous month. Now, a VOC is not someone who frequently gets upset about organic food. Rather, volatile, in this case, means that it can easily go into the air. Therefore, a VOC is a gaseous chemical substance that can be emitted by a solid object or material.
Many VOCs are potentially silent but deadly, not in a fart way, but in a potentially cancer-causing way. VOCs include formaldehyde and benzene, which are considered Class I carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), meaning they are known carcinogens. Meanwhile, acetaldehyde, ethylbenzene, and styrene are considered probable class II carcinogens, meaning that studies have suggested they are likely to cause cancer.
For the study, the research team measured the concentrations of different VOCs in a parked SUV for 12 consecutive days that spanned from July 21 to August 1, 2022. They chose 12 days not for there was a partridge in a pear tree somehow. Instead, they wanted a time period that could span different weather conditions, such as sunny, cloudy, and rainy days, and thus show how VOC levels can vary with temperature, relative humidity, and other environmental conditions . The research team used a device to measure VOC concentration instead of a graduate student, because you don’t want to keep a graduate student locked in an SUV for 12 days straight.
Tests revealed a formaldehyde situation and go for it. While corpses may not be the first thing you think of when sitting in a new car, concentrations of formaldehyde, which is often used to preserve corpses, exceeded Chinese national safety standards by 34.9% during the 12 days Acetaldehyde levels were even higher, 60.5% above these standards. High levels of benzene were also observed.
Not great news when you’re sitting in a car and breathing heavily, you know. It can be especially worrying if you’re actively panting while driving. And think about how much time you and others might spend in cars these days, whether you average more than 50 minutes a day by car or much more if driving is part of your job, such as when you’re a driver of Uber or Lyft.
Even if you hold your breath whenever you drive or ride in a car, which is not advisable, these VOCs could reach your body through your skin or mucous membranes. Keeping your car windows open can help ventilate the inside of the car and reduce your exposure, as you can when someone in the car lets out a bad fart. But that’s not always practical in a rain or blizzard or if your passenger has a rather elaborate hairstyle or poorly anchored toupee. While you can always wear a hazmat suit while in a car, this may get some comments from your date.
This is not a VOC, yes you know me. It is not clear how long the car interior can continue to remove these VOCs and at what level. While the emission might be higher when the vehicle is new, it doesn’t seem like it’s just a new car thing as the 2021 publication in the magazine. International Environment cited a number of other previous studies that found potentially dangerous VOCs in the cabins of vehicles, some new, some old. It’s also unclear what your actual risk of cancer may be over time and how it may vary based on how long you spend in a car.
However, it is clear that breathing formaldehyde, benzene, acetaldehyde and other VOCs is not good. Draper didn’t say, “Happiness is formaldehyde.” So it’s time to pay more attention to that fragrance of that new Ford, that musk of that new Tesla, that smells of any new car. What materials inside the car can spill what into the cabin air, and what is driving the use of those materials, so to speak? One key is for automakers to reconsider the materials they use to line a vehicle’s interior, such as plastic, faux leather, and fabric or felt. They can use materials that do not have VOCs flying off the handle. And the seats, dashboards and other parts of the car.
Also, cars aren’t the only things that can emit VOCs into the air. As an increasing number of things around us are made of synthetic materials, an increasing number of chemicals can be in the air around us. And it’s time to give more air to this problem.
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