scholarly journals Integrating Personal Air Sensor and GPS to Determine Microenvironment-Specific Exposures to Volatile Organic Compounds

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 5659
Author(s):  
Michael S. Breen ◽  
Vlad Isakov ◽  
Steven Prince ◽  
Kennedy McGuinness ◽  
Peter P. Egeghy ◽  
...  

Personal exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from indoor sources including consumer products is an understudied public health concern. To develop and evaluate methods for monitoring personal VOC exposures, we performed a pilot study and examined time-resolved sensor-based measurements of geocoded total VOC (TVOC) exposures across individuals and microenvironments (MEs). We integrated continuous (1 min) data from a personal TVOC sensor and a global positioning system (GPS) logger, with a GPS-based ME classification model, to determine TVOC exposures in four MEs, including indoors at home (Home-In), indoors at other buildings (Other-In), inside vehicles (In-Vehicle), and outdoors (Out), across 45 participant-days for five participants. To help identify places with large emission sources, we identified high-exposure events (HEEs; TVOC > 500 ppb) using geocoded TVOC time-course data overlaid on Google Earth maps. Across the 45 participant-days, the MEs ranked from highest to lowest median TVOC were: Home-In (165 ppb), Other-In (86 ppb), In-Vehicle (52 ppb), and Out (46 ppb). For the two participants living in single-family houses with attached garages, the median exposures for Home-In were substantially higher (209, 416 ppb) than the three participant homes without attached garages: one living in a single-family house (129 ppb), and two living in apartments (38, 60 ppb). The daily average Home-In exposures exceeded the estimated Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building guideline of 108 ppb for 60% of the participant-days. We identified 94 HEEs across all participant-days, and 67% of the corresponding peak levels exceeded 1000 ppb. The MEs ranked from the highest to the lowest number of HEEs were: Home-In (60), Other-In (13), In-Vehicle (12), and Out (9). For Other-In and Out, most HEEs occurred indoors at fast food restaurants and retail stores, and outdoors in parking lots, respectively. For Home-In HEEs, the median TVOC emission and removal rates were 5.4 g h−1 and 1.1 h−1, respectively. Our study demonstrates the ability to determine individual sensor-based time-resolved TVOC exposures in different MEs, in support of identifying potential sources and exposure factors that can inform exposure mitigation strategies.

Author(s):  
Kyle L. Alford ◽  
Naresh Kumar

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are commonly found in consumer products, including furniture, sealants and paints. Thus, indoor VOCs have become a public health concern, especially in high-income countries (HICs), where people spend most of their time indoors, and indoor and outdoor air exchange is minimal due to a lack of ventilation. VOCs produce high levels of reaction with the airway epithelium and mucosa membrane and is linked with pulmonary diseases. This paper takes a stock of the literature to assess the strength of association (measured by effect size) between VOCs and pulmonary diseases with the focus on asthma and its related symptoms by conducting a meta-analysis. The literature was searched using the PubMed database. A total of 49 studies that measured VOCs or VOC types and pulmonary health outcomes were included in the analysis. The results of these studies were tabulated, and standard effect size of each study was computed. Most studies were conducted in high-income countries, including France (n = 7), Japan (n = 7) and the United States (n = 6). Our analysis suggests that VOCs have a medium-sized effect on pulmonary diseases, including the onset of asthma (effect size (or Cohen’s d) ~0.37; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.25–0.49; n = 23) and wheezing (effective size ~0.26; 95% CI = 0.10–0.42; n = 10). The effect size also varied by country, age and disease type. Multiple stakeholders must be engaged in strategies to mitigate and manage VOC exposure and its associated pulmonary disease burden.


2014 ◽  
Vol 77 (22-24) ◽  
pp. 1502-1521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seong Kwang Lim ◽  
Han Seung Shin ◽  
Kyung Sil Yoon ◽  
Seung Jun Kwack ◽  
Yoon Mi Um ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
pp. 291-294
Author(s):  
Lennart Mårtensson ◽  
Lars Thörneby ◽  
Staffan Bergström ◽  
Diauddin Nammari ◽  
Lennart Mathiasson

Volatile organic compounds (VOC) are typically defined as those predominantly presentin the vapour phase in air at ambient temperature, They range in volatility from methaneto n-e 16 above and include all chemical groups - alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, esters,glycol ethers, halogens and hydrocarbons, Many of the voes are produced and emittedwhen organic matter decomposes from microbiological activity, A great number ofvolatile compounds been identified in the air in the vicinity of landfills, voes emittedfrom landfills pose as health concern and odour annoyance for the neighbourhood, Highconcentrations of voes have also been identified in the working environments at wastehandling facilities, Emissions of volatile organics from leachate, and how the treatmentsystem affects the fate of the voes have been reported, A variety of different samplingstrategies and sampling media can be used to address different monitoring requirements,including adsorption tubes and impingers with a suitable absorption solution, Finalanalysis of voes can be performed with a combination of thermodesorption ofadsorption tubes and Ge-MS, Model studies of the emission of voes from the watersurface, at the actual site in ponds or in the laboratory, can be performed in order tofacilitate budget calculations using a special designed hood, Results from analysis ofleachate before and after treatment procedures, using purge and trap methodology, showshow some identified voes such as for example benzene, toluene, xylen and trimethylbenzene are to some extent removed from the liquid,


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajoke F. Idayat Apanpa-Qasim ◽  
Adebola A. Adeyi

Background. Consumer products such as paints are a potentially significant source of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and oxygenated VOCs. Paints for construction and household use have been rapidly changing from oil-based to water-based paints and are one of the commonly identified sources of oxygenated VOCs in indoor environments. Objectives. Four different anti-freezing agents were identified and analyzed in 174 waterbased paint samples, purchased from popular paint markets in two metropolitan cities in Nigeria, Lagos and Ibadan. Methods. Paint samples were solvent extracted using acetonitrile and milli-Q water. Antifreezing agents in the extracts were identified and quantified using gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrometry and a GC-flame ionization detector, respectively. Discussion. Four different anti-freezing agents were identified in the samples, ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, triethylene glycol and propylene glycol. Their levels ranged from 1,000-1,980 ppm, diethylene glycol; 1,000–3,900 ppm, triethylene glycol; 1,090–2,510 ppm, propylene glycol and 1,350–2,710 ppm, ethylene glycol. Levels of anti-freezing agents in all of the paint samples were above the permissible limits of the European Union for VOCs in paints of 500 ppm. Results of multivariate statistical analyses clearly showed that triethylene glycol was the most commonly used anti-freezing agent in paints despite its numerous harmful health effects. Conclusions. We concluded that water-based paints marketed in Nigeria contain high concentrations of anti-freezing agents, which have harmful environmental and human health effects, especially to sensitive individuals such as children. Competing Interests. The authors declare no competing financial interests.


Indoor Air ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgane Even ◽  
Christoph Hutzler ◽  
Olaf Wilke ◽  
Andreas Luch

The Analyst ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 144 (24) ◽  
pp. 7359-7367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Pugliese ◽  
Phillip Trefz ◽  
Beate Brock ◽  
Jochen K. Schubert ◽  
Wolfram Miekisch

Direct time resolved mass spectrometric monitoring of reactive exhaled nitrogen- and sulfur-containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) related to metabolic processes, diseases and bacterial activity.


1987 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lance A. Wallace ◽  
Edo Pellizzari ◽  
Brian Leaderer ◽  
Harvey Zelon ◽  
Linda Sheldon

Chemosphere ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 201 ◽  
pp. 466-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa Lucattini ◽  
Giulia Poma ◽  
Adrian Covaci ◽  
Jacob de Boer ◽  
Marja H. Lamoree ◽  
...  

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