The petroleum refinery industry handles a variety of complex chemical substances and employs a large number of people around the world. According to previous research, diseases caused by exposure to chemicals were quite common among workers in refineries until the 1980s. More recently, it is unusual for oil refinery workers to suffer from these serious diseases. The objective of this study was to identify the occurrence level of general diseases and any differences in lifestyle habits of workers in refineries in Korea compared with the general population. In this study, we used the results of health examinations from 2014 for workers at a large oil refinery in South Korea. In addition, based on the results of KNHANES from 2014 as representative of the population, hypertension, diabetes, anemia, hyperlipidemia, liver function abnormality, and kidney function abnormality were calculated using the standardized incidence rate. Hypertension showed a low result with an SIR of less than 1, but a high result in the case of abnormal liver function. The workers’ occurrence rates of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, kidney dysfunction, and anemia were lower than those of ordinary salaried employees. however, their occurrence rate for abnormal liver function was markedly higher. In lifestyle habits, the smoking rate of workers was low while the alcohol consumption rate was quite high. This study has improved the understanding of the health status of workers in a large oil refinery in Korea, and has shown the impact of lifestyle habits related to the work environment on chronic diseases.

정유산업 방출폐수를 재처리하여 양질의 공업용수로 활용하고자 역삼투막 및 공정으로 구성된 재활용 system을 고안하여 현장 pilot 실험을 수행하였다. 생산공정 운전상황에 따라 불규칙적으로 변하는 폐수 특성에도 불구하고 역삼투막의 경우 10~15kg/cm2 의 운전압력 범위내에서 96~99%정도의 비교적 높은 염배제율을 보였으며 본 실험을 통하여 얻은 재생수의 경우 냉각탑 공급용수로써의 충분한 가능성을 보여 주었다. 그러나 본 연구에서 제안 사용된 여과형 전처리 공정만으로는 충분한 처리효율을 기대하기 어려웠으며, 이는 각 여과공정법 처리수의 수질분석 결과 및 NaOH를 이용한 역삼투막 세정 결과로부터 쉽게 확인되었다.