An Investigation of Indoor Air Quality in a Recently Refurbished Educational Building

Young people spend extended periods of time in educational buildings, yet relatively little is known about the air quality in such spaces, or the long-term risks which contaminant exposure places on their health and development. Although standards exist in many countries in relation to indoor air quality in educational buildings, they are rarely subject to detailed post-occupancy evaluation. In this study a novel indoor air quality testing methodology is proposed and demonstrated in the context of assessing the post-occupancy performance of a recently refurbished architecture studio building at Loughborough University, United Kingdom. The approach used provides a monitoring process that was designed to evaluate air quality in accordance with United Kingdom national guidelines (Building Bulletin 101) and international (WELL Building) standards. Additional, scenario-based, testing was incorporated to isolate the presence and source of harmful volatile organic compounds, which were measured using diffusive sampling methods involving analysis by thermal desorption - gas chromatography - mass spectrometry techniques. The findings show that whilst the case-study building appears to perform well in respect to existing national and international standards, these guidelines only assess average CO2 concentrations and total volatile organic compound limits. The results indicate that existing standards, designed to protect the health and wellbeing of students, are likely to be masking potentially serious indoor air quality problems. The presence of numerous harmful VOCs found in this study indicates that an urgent revaluation of educational building procurement and air quality monitoring guidelines is needed.

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Effects of Night Ventilation on Indoor Air Quality in Educational Buildings—A Field Study

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11094056 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (9) ◽

pp. 4056

Author(s):

Sami Lestinen ◽

Simo Kilpeläinen ◽

Risto Kosonen ◽

Maria Valkonen ◽

Juha Jokisalo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Quality ◽

Volatile Organic Compounds ◽

Indoor Air Quality ◽

Organic Compounds ◽

Indoor Air ◽

Total Volatile ◽

Volatile Organic ◽

Educational Buildings ◽

Total Volatile Organic Compounds ◽

Night Ventilation

Night ventilation methods have been used in educational buildings to guarantee indoor air quality at the beginning of occupied periods. A typical method has been to pre-start ventilation 2 h before the space usage. Another selection has been to ventilate a building continuously during the night with a minimum airflow rate that can dilute material emissions. In this study, the pre-started, continuous, and intermittent ventilation methods were compared by assessing indoor air quality in field measurements. The daytime ventilation was operating normally. The test periods lasted for 2 weeks. Indoor air quality was assessed by measuring the total volatile organic compounds and microbial concentrations using the quantitative polymerase chain reaction method. Additionally, the thermal conditions, carbon dioxide, and pressure differences over the building envelope were measured. The results show that the night ventilation strategy had negligible effects on microbial concentrations. In most cases, the indoor air microbial concentrations were only a few percent of those found outdoors. The averaged concentration of total volatile organic compounds was at the same level with all the night ventilation methods at the beginning of the occupied periods in the mornings. The concentrations reached a minimum level after 2-h ventilation. The concentrations of total volatile organic compounds were higher during the day than at night. This reveals that space usage had the largest effect on the total volatile organic compounds. Generally, the results show that continuous night ventilation does not significantly affect the biological and chemical contaminants. Consequently, a 2-h flushing period is long enough to freshen indoor air before occupancy.

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The Improvement of Indoor Air Quality in Residential Buildings in Dubai, UAE

Buildings ◽

10.3390/buildings11060250 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 250

Author(s):

Chuloh Jung ◽

Jihad Awad

Keyword(s):

Computer Simulation ◽

Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air ◽

Building Materials ◽

Field Survey ◽

Residential Buildings ◽

Radon Gas ◽

Volatile Organic ◽

Residential Projects

Due to unprecedented urbanization, UAE had built many new residential projects with poor choices of material and ventilation. This social phenomenon is leading UAE to Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) faster than any other countries. The Dubai Municipality regulates the indoor air quality with strict stipulation, but the detailed regulations are still insufficient. The objective of this paper is to measure the indoor air quality of new residential projects in Dubai to suggest the improvement of the regulations for indoor air quality. As a methodology, a field survey was conducted to investigate the status of indoor air pollution in residential buildings. Based on the field survey data, lab experiments for building materials were conducted and a computer simulation on radon gas was conducted. The result had shown that radon gas was mainly detected in new townhouses and labor camp houses, and its concentration was found to exceed the standard. Volatile organic solvents (VOCs) and formaldehyde (CH2O) were mainly detected in showhouses and new townhouses, and the concentration distribution was about 10 times higher than that of outdoors. It was proven that emission concentration of radon gas from various building materials were detected, and the order was red clay, gypsum board, and concrete. Volatile organic solvents (VOCs) are mainly detected in oil paints and PVC floor and the radiation amount of all pollutants increased with temperature increase. In computer simulation, it was found that a new townhouse needs a grace period from 20 days to 6 months to lower the radon gas concentration by 2 pCi/L. This study will serve as a basic data to establish more detailed regulation for the building materials and improve the IAQ standards in Dubai.

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Total Volatile Organic Compound (TVOC) as Index of Indoor Air Quality and Its Measuring and Evaluation

Journal of the Human-Environment System ◽

10.1618/jhes.23.1 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Masahiro Hori

Keyword(s):

Air Quality ◽

Organic Compound ◽

Indoor Air Quality ◽

Volatile Organic Compound ◽

Indoor Air ◽

Total Volatile ◽

Total Volatile Organic Compound ◽

Volatile Organic

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Transient Effects of Different Ventilation Methods on Car Indoor Air Quality

Studies in Engineering and Technology ◽

10.11114/set.v2i1.891 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 70 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Feng-Chyi Duh

Keyword(s):

Carbon Dioxide ◽

Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air ◽

Air Conditioning ◽

Heat Index ◽

Transient Effects ◽

Air Conditioning System ◽

Carbon Dioxide Concentrations ◽

Volatile Organic

This study investigated transient effects on the air quality of parked cars and moving cars with and without operating air conditioning. Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and formaldehyde concentrations were measured for comparative analysis. The results showed that simply changing the air conditioning system from internal circulation to external circulation to introduce air from outside reduces carbon dioxide concentrations by more than 50%, volatile organic compound concentrations by more than 77%, and the heat index from 0.1℃/min to less than 0.05 ℃/min. In order to conserve energy and improve car indoor air quality, this study can serve as a reference on healthy car environments.

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Energy Efficiency – Indoor Air Quality Dilemma in Educational Buildings: A Possible Solution

Environmental and Climate Technologies ◽

10.2478/rtuect-2020-0020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 357-367

Author(s):

Liva Asere ◽

Andra Blumberga

Keyword(s):

Energy Efficiency ◽

Renewable Energy ◽

Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air ◽

Renewable Energy Sources ◽

Energy Sources ◽

Pv System ◽

Educational Buildings ◽

Electricity Tariff

AbstractThe energy efficiency – indoor air quality dilemma is well known and the main drawback to operate the mechanical ventilation is electricity costs as concluded from previous studies. Educational buildings are one of the places where future taxpayers spend a lot of time. This paper aims to study an alternative solution on how to reduce energy efficiency – indoor air quality dilemma in educational buildings by adopting systems that use renewable energy sources. A typical education building in Latvia is taken as a case study by changing it from a consumer to prosumer. This building type has a specific electricity usage profile that makes the choice of photovoltaics (PV) power quite challenging so the various power options have been analysed and used for an electricity solution. Also, the more decentralised preference is chosen – disconnect from a public heating provider and using a local system with a pellet boiler. Educational buildings using PV can reduce the electricity tariff, but the payback periods are still not very satisfactory without subsidies. The average electricity tariff per month varies between scenarios and the best one is for the scenario with 30 kW installed power. The educational building partly using 16 kW PV system reduces not only its bill for electricity but also reduces CO2 emissions by around 36 tons. The education buildings as energy prosumers using renewable energy sources are reducing GHG emissions by having high indoor air quality.

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Indoor Air Quality Evaluation of Commercial Buildings In Kuantan

MATEC Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/matecconf/201822505018 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 225 ◽

pp. 05018

Author(s):

Noor Huwaida Yahaya ◽

Ftwi Yohaness Hagos ◽

Mohamad Firdaus Basrawi

Keyword(s):

Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air ◽

Quality Evaluation ◽

Commercial Buildings ◽

Volatile Organic ◽

Health And Illness ◽

Carbon Dioxide Co2 ◽

Pm 10 ◽

Respirable Particulate

This work focuses on indoor air quality evaluation of commercial buildings in Kuantan. Some buildings have been selected to monitor indoor air quality. The research has been carried out only in Kuantan, which focused on hotels and government buildings. Some sample measurements were taken which include air temperature, relative humidity, and air movement, carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (O3), respirable particulate matter (PM 10), formaldehyde and total volatile organic compound (TVOC). In addition, questionnaires were conducted on a number of workers in each building to determine the level of health and illness caused by air in the building where they work. Hence, this study has analyzed the link between the questioner results and the results of indoor air measurements that were carried out. From surveys, it appears there are four buildings that have low air flow, four buildings have a lot of dust and five buildings have a high temperature. In contrast, four buildings have a good indoor air quality.

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Indoor Air Quality in an Auto Repair Shop: A Case Study

Proceedings ◽

10.3390/proceedings2019016055 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 55

Author(s):

Andrzej Gajewski ◽

Kacper Jermacz

Keyword(s):

Carbon Dioxide ◽

Carbon Monoxide ◽

Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air ◽

Statistical Significance ◽

International Standards ◽

Dew Point ◽

Absolute Pressure ◽

Repair Shop

The aim of the paper was to conduct an indoor air quality (IAQ) assessment in an auto repair shop, measuring CO2 and CO concentrations. Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide concentrations were measured for a week. Two Testo 435-4 gauges were located at head height of an adult person (ca. 170 cm above the floor) in a room. The CO2 concentration was measured with an IAQ probe, which measures dew point temperature, psychrometer temperature and absolute pressure in indoor air. The second gauge was connected to a CO probe. Measurements were taken every 5 min and were averaged across an hour. Uncertainties were estimated using square-root combinations of fixed errors and random errors at a 0.05 level of statistical significance. The measurements were conducted from 17 November to 23 November 2018. The following graphs were plotted for carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide: hourly averaged concentration and 8 h averaged concentration. The results were discussed and compared to Polish, foreign and international standards and recommendations. It was found that the auto shop was in danger of negligence according to Polish law as well as nonfulfillment of healthy recommendations. An exhaust extraction system should be installed.

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