A preliminary field study of indoor chemistry

Mélanie Nicolas (1) , Olivier Ramalho (1) , François Maupetit (1)

1 CSTB - Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment

In order to document the potential impact of outdoor ozone and NOx on indoor air quality, a field campaign has been organized from June to October 2004 in the CSTB experimental houseMARIA. New building materials have been selected and installed in a test room where ventilation conditions are precisely controlled. During the experiments, the mean I/O NOx (mainly as NO2) ratio was close to 0.9 regardless of the AER, while the mean ozone ratio was 0.2, 0.09 and 0.04 with a respective AER of 2.4, 1.0 and 0.6 h-1. This sharp depletion of the I/O ozone ratio is an evidence of ozone-induced reactions occurring in the test room both on indoor surfaces and in the gas-phase with specific VOC emitted by the new materials. Detailed experiments performed during photochemical pollution episodes showed the apparition of ozone-initiated reactions products indoors. In particular, formaldehyde, hexanal and presumably submicron particles peaked indoors just after the ozone peaked outdoors.

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement

Mélanie Nicolas, Olivier Ramalho, François Maupetit. A preliminary field study of indoor chemistry. 10th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, Indoor Air'2005, Sep 2005, Beijing, China. pp.1739-1743. ⟨hal-00688537⟩