Abstract:
Contemporary life is mostly spent in indoor spaces like private houses, workplaces, vehicles and public facilities. Nonetheless, the air quality in these closed environments is often poor which leads to people being exposed to a vast range of toxic and hazardous compounds. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are among the main factors responsible for the lack of air quality in closed spaces and, in addition, some of them are particularly hazardous to the human organism. Considering this fact, we conducted daily in situ air analyses over 1 year using a gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) device in an indoor location. The obtained results show that 10 VOCs were consistently present in the indoor air throughout the entire year, making them particularly important for controlling air quality. All of these compounds were successfully identified, namely acetic acid, acetone, benzene, butanol, ethanol, isobutanol, propanoic acid, propanol, 2-propanol and tert-butyl methyl ether. The behaviour of the total VOCs (tVOCs) intensity during the period of analysis and the relative variation between consecutive months were studied. It was observed that the overall trend of tVOCs closely mirrored the variation of air temperature throughout the year suggesting their strong correlation. The results obtained from this study demonstrate the high quality and relevance of the data, highlighting the suitability of GC-IMS for in situ long-term air quality assessment in indoor environments and, consequently, for identifying potential health risks for the human organism in both short-term and long-term exposure scenarios.
摘要:
当代生活主要是在像私人住宅这样的室内空间中度过,工作场所,车辆和公共设施。尽管如此,这些封闭环境中的空气质量通常很差,这导致人们暴露于各种有毒和有害化合物中。挥发性有机化合物(VOCs)是造成封闭空间空气质量不足的主要因素,此外,其中一些对人体特别有害。考虑到这个事实,我们在室内使用气相色谱-离子迁移谱(GC-IMS)设备进行了为期1年的日常原位空气分析。所获得的结果表明,全年室内空气中始终存在10种VOC,使它们对控制空气质量特别重要。所有这些化合物都被成功鉴定,即乙酸,丙酮,苯,丁醇,乙醇,异丁醇,丙酸,丙醇,2-丙醇和叔丁基甲基醚。研究了分析期间总VOCs(tVOCs)强度的行为以及连续月份之间的相对变化。观察到,tVOCs的总体趋势与全年气温的变化密切相关,表明它们之间存在很强的相关性。从这项研究中获得的结果证明了数据的高质量和相关性,强调GC-IMS在室内环境中进行原位长期空气质量评估的适用性,因此,用于确定短期和长期暴露情况下对人体的潜在健康风险。