Health Effects of Carbon Monoxide

Exposure health effects of Carbon Monoxide - CO

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Carbon monoxide is a odorless, tasteless, colorless, and toxic gas.

Carbon monoxide is produced as a by-product of combustion. Any combustion process, fuel burning appliance, vehicle or other device has the potential to produce carbon monoxide gas.

Carbon monoxide is dangerous because it inhibits the blood's ability to carry oxygen to vital organs such as the heart and brain. Inhaled CO combines with the oxygen carrying hemoglobin of the blood and forms carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) which is unusable for transporting oxygen.

Health effects of various concentration of carbon monoxide:

Exposure (hours)	CO Concentration (ppm)¹
Exposure (hours)	Perceptable	Sickness³⁾	Deadly⁴⁾
0.5	600	1000	2000
1	200	600	1600
2	100	300	1000
4	50	150	400
6	25	120	200
8	25²⁾	100	150

¹⁾ ppm - parts per million - is defined as the mass of the component in solution divided by the total mass of the solution multiplied by 10⁶ (one million)

²⁾ The maximum exposure allowed by OSHA in the workplace over an eight hour period is 35 ppm.

³⁾ Typical sickness symptoms are mild headache, fatigue, nausea and dizziness.

⁴⁾ A CO concentration of 12-13.000 ppm is deadly after 1-3 minutes. A CO concentration of 1600 ppm is deadly after one hour.

Concentration of CO in the air (ppm)	Inhalation Time	Toxic Symptoms
9	Short term exposure	ASHRAE recommended maximum allowable concentration in living area.
35	8 hours	The maximum exposure allowed by OSHA in the workplace over an eight hour period.
200	2-3 hours	Slight headache, tiredness, fatigue, nausea and dizziness.
400	1-2 hours	Serious headache-other symptoms intensify. Life threatening after 3 hours.
800	45 minutes	Dizziness, nausea and convulsions. Unconscious within 2 hours. Death after 2-3 hours.
1,600	20 minutes	Headache, dizziness and nausea. Death within 1 hour.
3,200	5-10 minutes	Headache, dizziness, nausea. Death within 1 hour.
6,400	1-2 minutes	Headache, dizziness, nausea. Death within 25-30 minutes.
12,800	1-3 minutes	Death within 1-3 minutes

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