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Nitrogen-Containing Emissions from Cooking: Mechanisms and Impacts on Indoor and Outdoor Air
JENNA DITTO, Jonathan Abbatt, Arthur W. H. Chan, University of Toronto
Abstract Number: 158
Working Group: Indoor Aerosols
Abstract
As emissions from the transportation sector decline due to technological advances and regulatory control, a new set of sources is emerging as important drivers of urban air quality. In particular, food cooking represents a major primary source of gas- and particle-phase organic compounds to the atmosphere, and the contribution of cooking organic aerosol to total primary organic aerosol is comparable to motor vehicles in some major North American cities. In addition to the suite of compounds emitted from heated cooking oil, which contains many mutagenic and carcinogenic hydrocarbons and oxygenates, cooking protein-rich foods can produce nitrogen-containing species across a range of structures and functional groups. Many of these compounds are particularly hazardous to human health, such as heterocyclic amines and acrylamide, and have been observed to form in food itself during high-temperature cooking processes. To evaluate the potential for inhalation exposure to these compounds, we examine the emissions of nitrogen-containing gases and particles during food cooking. Using proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry, offline sampling with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and a model system in the laboratory for controlled cooking simulations, we observe a range of nitrogen-containing (CxHyN1-3) and nitrogen- and oxygen-containing (CxHyN1-3O1-3) emissions across gas and particle phases. These compounds are formed at variable rates and yields during the thermal degradation of amino acids in cooking oil, from reactions of ammonia and amino acid fragments with oil-derived oxygenates, including precursor aldehydes and carboxylic acids. We investigate these primary nitrogen-containing emissions and their fundamental formation mechanisms within cooking oil. In addition, we evaluate their propensity to react with common indoor reactive gases (e.g. ammonia, nitrous acid) to form secondary nitrogen-containing products, and their subsequent impacts on both indoor and outdoor air.