Logo image
Surface reservoirs dominate dynamic gas-surface partitioning of many indoor air constituents
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Surface reservoirs dominate dynamic gas-surface partitioning of many indoor air constituents

Chen Wang, Douglas B. Collins, Caleb Arata, Allen H. Goldstein, James M. Mattila, Delphine K. Farmer, Laura Ampollini, Peter F. DeCarlo, Atila Novoselac, Marina E. Vance, …
Science advances, v 6(8), eaay8973
01 Feb 2020
PMID: 32128415
url
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay8973View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY-NC V4.0 Open

Abstract

Multidisciplinary Sciences Science & Technology Science & Technology - Other Topics
Human health is affected by indoor air quality. One distinctive aspect of the indoor environment is its very large surface area that acts as a poorly characterized sink and source of gas-phase chemicals. In this work, air-surface interactions of 19 common indoor air contaminants with diverse properties and sources were monitored in a house using fast-response, on-line mass spectrometric and spectroscopic methods. Enhanced-ventilation experiments demonstrate that most of the contaminants reside in the surface reservoirs and not, as expected, in the gas phase. They participate in rapid air-surface partitioning that is much faster than air exchange. Phase distribution calculations are consistent with the observations when assuming simultaneous equilibria between air and large weakly polar and polar absorptive surface reservoirs, with acid-base dissociation in the polar reservoir. Chemical exposure assessments must account for the finding that contaminants that are fully volatile under outdoor air conditions instead behave as semivolatile compounds indoors.

Metrics

27 Record Views
133 citations in Scopus

Details

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being
#11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

InCites Highlights

Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Environmental Sciences
Logo image