Experimental Investigation of Indoor Air Pollutants in Residential Buildings

Abstract

Indoor air quality is affected by many factors, including energy provision/use. The main objective of this research was to investigate indoor air pollutant emissions due to energy use in residential buildings, with a specific focus on particulate matter (PM). Three environments were compared: (a) a rural house with an electric cooker; (b) a city-centre flat with a gas cooker; and (c) an urban flat on a main road, also with gas appliances. Concentrations of PM, CO, NO 2 and VOCs were measured in the kitchens and emission rates were calculated for cooking periods. Although there has been a great deal of research examining the effects of gaseous pollutants in the indoor environment, this is one of the first studies to specifically focus on PM. Most particles were small ( 2.5 mm) and thus respirable. The elemental analysis of the PM revealed high metal concentrations (Fe/Na/Zn), whilst their morphologies indicated these were present as salt, skin and particles of biological origin. Gaseous emissions, particularly NO 2 and CO, were more prevalent in homes with gas appliances, since these are a significant source of both pollutants.Nomenclature a ¼ Air exchange rate (h À1 ) C in ¼ Indoor mass concentration of pollutants (mgÁm À3 ) C out ¼ Outdoor mass concentration of pollutants (mgÁm À3 ) EDS ¼ Energy dispersion X-ray systemOxides of nitrogen p ¼ Penetration coefficient across building envelope PM ¼ Particulate matter S e ¼ Emission rate (mgÁh À1 ) SEM ¼ Scanning electron microscopy t ¼ Sampling time (h) V ¼ Volume of the room (m 3 ) VOCs ¼ Volatile organic compounds Át ¼ Cooking time (h) RVOCs ¼ Sum (total) of top 20 volatile organic compounds ß The Author(s), 2012. Reprints and permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

Impact of human activities on the concentration of indoor air particles in an antarctic research station

“…Nonetheless, there are marked differences between emission size distributions for each activity. For instance, the living room presents a marked concentration of submicron particles as the amount of time spent on cooking, burnt food and different cooking techniques, such as more frying using cooking oil, influences particle concentration, particularly, the fine fractions of PM (GÉHIN; RAMALHO; KIRCHNER, 2008;TAN et al, 2013). This trend is more marked during breakfast, which is characterized by a long period of bread baking.…”

“…Fine particles with diameters less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5), in non-smoking indoor environments, primarily originate from human activities that involve combustion processes, such as cooking (TAN et al, 2013) or incineration (BUONANNO; MORAWSKA, 2014). Particularly for urban buildings, there is also a strong correlation of these particles with the presence of external sources (VIANA; DÍEZ; RECHE, 2011) as they are small and tend to infiltrate buildings, even when the windows are closed (SANTOS et al, 2011).…”

Design and performance evaluation of the functional coating for air purification under indoor conditions

“…Fig. 6 shows graphically the NO, NO 2 and NO x concentration development results during the pre-treatment of the SC40 sample.…”

“…This was performed to quantify the amount of TiO 2 in the SC40 and to analyze other components possibly interfering with the photocatalytic efficiency in SC40 and TC. The analysis was performed by an energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometer/Epsilon 3 range (PANalytical).…”

“…Hazardous substances emitted from buildings, construction materials, indoor equipment and/or due to human activities indoors (e.g., cooking, cleaning, smoking or heating) and pollutants from outdoors lead to a broad range of health problems and may even be fatal [1]. Indoor air pollution levels are very often higher than outdoors, particularly in air-tight buildings due to energy saving demands [2].…”