A CFD Simulation Study of VOC and Formaldehyde Indoor Air Pollution Dispersion in an Apartment as Part of an Indoor Pollution Management Plan

Abstract

This paper is a preliminary report of an indoor pollution case study in a complex of apartments as a part of an Indoor Pollution Management Plan (IPMP). It describes the calculation by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques and presents the predicted air flow, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and formaldehyde contaminant distributions in an apartment comprised of a full-scale kitchen with open access to a living room, ventilated by an exhaust hood. The CFD Code PHOENICS ® , which is based on solving the full 3-D Navier Stokes equations for turbulent flow and scalar conservation equations, was used. Major kitchen indoor pollution sources, VOCs and formaldehyde emitting materials and their emission characteristics were calculated through the use of emission factors. A typical apartment was used under case study and its detailed geometry was applied for the CFD model. To analyze the characteristics of the indoor environment, different mixing ventilation schemes (different locations of the cooker/oven and air inlets) were chosen as the parameters to investigate the indoor environment. The fields of VOCs and formaldehyde for several air inlets window positions, and ventilation parameters were calculated and compared. It was concluded that CFD methods can be used as a useful tool to assist the rational design of indoor spaces.

Technical Note: Concerns on the Use of Ozone Scrubbers for Gaseous Carbonyl Measurement by DNPH-Coated Silica Gel Cartridge

“…Without correcting the concentration values by the measured collection efficiencies, the next abundant carbonyl species were acetaldehyde and acetone. Higher carbonyl concentrations were observed at the urban sampling location compared to those measured at the rural location, suggesting the dominance of anthropogenic sources (e.g., vehicular and cooking emissions) in local carbonyl emissions (Ho and Yu, 2002;Ho et al, 2006;Hwang et al, 2011;Panagopoulos et al, 2011;Han et al, 2012;Ho et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2012). Unsaturated carbonyls including acrolein and crotonaldehyde were detected but their abundances were uncertain or inaccurate.…”

Airborne and Surface-Bound Microbial Contamination in Two Intensive Care Units of a Medical Center in Central Taiwan

“…A number of studies have indicated that indoor air pollutants with chemical (Lu et al, 2006;Chen et al, 2009) and biological (Ortiz et al, 2009;Wan et al, 2011;Napoli et al, 2012) natures pose potential hazards to patients, medical staffs, and visitors in hospitals. Sophisticated simulations through computational fluid dynamics for indoor air contamination and control design have also been developed (Panagopoulos et al, 2011;Cao et al, 2012). In particular, Ping-Yun Huang and Zhi-Yuan Shi made equal contribution to the study.…”

Preparation of TiO2-Coated Polyester Fiber Filter by Spray-Coating and Its Photocatalytic Degradation of Gaseous Formaldehyde

“…In particular, the compressed wood products which use urea-formaldehyde (UF) resin as adhesive are one of the major emission sources indoors (Panagopoulos et al, 2011). Formaldehyde is also a by-product from cigarette smoking and fuel-burning (Daisey et al, 1994;Crump et al, 1997;Hodgson et al, 2000;Hippelein, 2004;Bari et al, 2011).…”