Indoor Air Pollution in Cars: An Update on Novel Insights

Abstract

From a global viewpoint, a lot of time is spent within the indoor air compartment of vehicles. A German study on mobility has revealed that, on average, people spend 45 minutes per day inside vehicles. In recent years the number of cars has increased to around 43 million vehicles in private households. This means that more than one car can be used in every household. The ratio has been growing, especially in eastern Germany and rural areas. “Overall and especially outside the cities, the car remains by far number one mode of transport, especially in terms of mileage”. Therefore, numerous international studies have addressed different aspects of indoor air hygiene, in the past years. In this paper, meaningful original studies on car indoor air pollution, related to VOCs, COx, PMs, microbials, BFRs, OPFRs, cigarettes, electronic smoking devices, high molecular weight plasticizer, and NOx are summarized in the form of a review. This present review aimed to summarize recently published studies in this important field of environmental medicine and points to the need for further studies with special recommendations for optimizing the interior air hygiene.

Microbial Degradation and Valorization of Plastic Wastes

“…Among all main kinds of synthetic plastics, PVC possesses the highest proportion of plasticizer (up to 50%). As plasticizers can be utilized by many fungi or bacteria as sources of nutrient carbons, plasticized PVC is usually susceptible to fungal or bacterial attack (Berk, 1950;Berk et al, 1957;Bessems, 1988;Kurane, 1988;Gumargalieva et al, 1999;Webb et al, 1999). For instance, a number of plasticized PVC bathroom items, such as bathtub lids, bath mats, and shower curtains, were found to be damaged by a variety of fungi ( Table 5; Moriyama et al, 1993).…”

Neural Network Supported Chemiresistor Array System for Detection of NO2 Gas Pollution in Smart Cities (NN-CAS)

“…The relative conductivity of the Central Sensor can be approximated and related to the edge sensors, using the expression in equation (5). In addition, the actual convergence factor   k for each gas concentration is also calculated using the expression in equations (5), together with Neural Networks predicted data, which should fulfill the criteria descripted by the expression in equation (6), while latching conditions for the system of array sensors is applied using the average convergence factor   Avg k as shown in equation (7).…”

“…Analysis and modelling of urban air quality was most of the time based on the assumption that vehicles on the road perform similarly to the way they do under development environments, this can lead to inaccurate prediction of the vehicles effect and contribution to air pollution and harmful emissions. The application of PbPc sensor array chemiresistors to the detection and subsequent analysis of gases emitted round urban areas and congested cities such as NO2, should provide reliable metric that can also be used in both real life and in development environments and can help in narrowing the gap between the development sites and real life applications in real time [5][6][7][8][9].…”

The Complexity of Space Utilization and Environmental Pollution Control in the Main Corridor of Makassar City, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…This condition has an impact on increasing air pollution caused by vehicle exhaust gas and decreasing environmental quality. Air pollution refers to the number of particles released into the air that is detrimental to human health [96]. The emissions include a myriad of toxic air pollutants and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), which is the most important human-produced climate-altering greenhouse gas [97].…”