Indoor air quality in residential buildings in Upper Silesia, Poland

Kozielska, Barbara; Mainka, Anna; Żak, Magdalena; Kaleta, Dorota; Mucha, Walter

doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.106914

Cited by 39 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…These values are much lower than those reported in offices by other researchers-e.g., 87.1 µg/m 3 in Singapore, 44.9 µg/m 3 in Mumbai(India), 14.6 µg/m 3 in Europe, 12.6 µg/m 3 in Seoul (Korea) and 8.8 µg/m 3 in Bangkok (Thailand) ( Table 4). The concentrations of benzene in offices is also lower than in residential buildings and flats in the Upper Silesia (Poland) [9]. For ethylbenzene, styrene, xylenes and 1,3,5-TMB, the concentrations were relatively low and did not exceed 5 µg/m 3 and 8 µg/m 3 in cold and warm seasons, respectively.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Electronic devices create another source of indoor emission. Styrene and ethylbenzene can be also introduced into the air from the Styrofoam coating layer, commonly used as a building thermal insulation [8,9]. The outdoor sources also contribute to low I/O and these include outdoor pollutants [7,50].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The issue of IAQ has attracted a great deal of attention of researchers, because people spend approximately 90% of their time indoors [1][2][3]-in homes, offices, schools, shops, and public spaces [4][5][6][7]. Furthermore, indoor air quality is essentially unmonitored and partly unregulated, even though pollutant concentrations are usually higher indoors than outdoors [4,8,9]. In the modern world, offices create work places for majority of population, where people spend over 12% of their life.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among these VOCs, benzene, toluene, ethylobenzene, xylenes, and styrene (BTEXS) have been recognized as principal pollutants and considered to be indicators of human exposure to volatile organic compounds. They were ranked as the most frequently detected compounds in indoor [12] and they are in focus of indoor quality examinations [4,5,8,9,[13][14][15][16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessment of Indoor Benzene and Its Alkyl Derivatives Concentrations in Offices Belonging to University of Technology (Poland)

Kozielska

Kaleta

2020

Atmosphere

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Indoor air contamination in office rooms is regarded as one of the most important issues in the protection of workers’ health, because contaminants, even those occurring at low concentrations, can cause health problems for the office staff in view of the long exposure time. This paper presents the results of measurements of benzene and its alkyl derivatives (toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, styrene, and 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene)—known indicators of human exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air in newly renovated offices at University of Technology (Upper Silesia, Poland). Monthly samples of indoor and outdoor air were collected during the years 2018–2019 by passive methods and analyzed by thermal desorption-gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (TD-GC/FID). In the first month of measurements average concentrations of the sum of five VOCs under consideration was 127.7 µg/m3, then in subsequent months between 15.1 µg/m3 to 87.3 µg/m3. The average concentration of carcinogenic benzene was below 1.5 μg/m3. Toluene had the highest concentration among studied VOCs, accounting for as high as 60% and 84% of the total indoor and outdoor VOCs, respectively. High indoor-to-outdoor (I/O) ratios for ethylbenzene (7.1), m,p-xylene (9.8), and styrene (12.5) indicate the dominant role of indoor sources.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessment of Indoor Benzene and Its Alkyl Derivatives Concentrations in Offices Belonging to University of Technology (Poland)

Kozielska

Kaleta

2020

Atmosphere

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“…The accuracy of NO 2 concentrations determined via the spectrophotometric method, with passive sample collection, was about 10%, and the limit of detection (LOD) during the 24-h sampling time was 2 µg/m 3 [36]. All of the reagents needed for both stage sampling and subsequent analysis were prepared according to the principles described in [32].…”

Section: Spectrophotometric Sample Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-Regional Highway Built through a City Centre as an Example of the Sustainable Development of Urban Transport

Żak

Mainka

2020

Sustainability

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Sustainable development requires ensuring the mobility of residents and must not cause deterioration of the quality of the environment in the selected area. The purpose of this study is to verify if the construction of a cross-regional highway through the city centre affected air quality in the neighbourhood of a newly built road. Air quality was assessed based on measurements of concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, which is considered to be typical for automotive sources air pollution. The spectrophotometric method with passive sampling was used in the 24 h NO2 measurements. The calculated mean NO2 concentrations in the periods before and after road construction were within the ranges of 23.2–31.9 μg/m3 and 22.3–28.9 μg/m3, respectively. The relative NO2 concentrations determined in the study for 10 out of 11 sampling points were lower than the unity, including 5 points markedly lower (0.82–0.89). The obtained results indicate that the construction of the new artery by the city centre, using appropriate technical solutions and traffic organization (tunnel, noise barriers, roundabouts, speed limit) likely contributed to an overall reduction in NO2 concentrations. The presented solution may serve as an example for other cities struggling with problems of low air quality associated with inefficient transportation systems.

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