Behaviour of Aerosol Particles in Indoor Environment

Aerosol particles are considered to be one of the major pollutants of the atmosphere. Many epidemiological studies confirmed relation between elevated aerosol particle concentration and adverse human health effects. Since human population is exposed to particulate matter (PM) mainly indoors, understanding of effects affecting indoor/outdoor PM characteristics is strongly required. In current work we report the size resolved mass and number concentration, chemical and elemental composition of PM measured indoors and outdoors of an apartment situated in the NW suburbs of Prague. A couple was living in the apartment during the campaign. All its activities (venting, cooking, dusting, vacuum cleaning, opening and closing doors, presence of people in the rooms, etc.) were recorded into a detailed diary in 15 min interval. Some activities in a special regime were carried out as well, e.g. smoking, burning of candle and incense stick, or using of a hair spray in a closed room. The effects of indoor sources to behavior and chemical composition of size segregated aerosol particles were studied using on-line instruments for PM concentration and sampling for PM chemical analysis. The results show the contribution of the indoor sources to the indoor PM pollution. Measurements were performed within two European projects URBAN-AEROSOL and URBAN-EXPOSURE with participation of laboratories from Norway, Great Britain, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, and Israel. The aim of the project was to estimate the exposure of inhabitants of large cities to PM.

CONTACT PERSON:

Jiří Smolík
phone: 220 390 247
e-mail: smolik@icpf.cas.cz
URL: http://www.icpf.cas.cz
More details on the project: http://www.nilu.no/projects/urban-aerosol
Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals, of the ASCR