Particle Concentrations and Sizes with Normal and High Efficiency Air Filtration in a Sealed Air-Conditioned Office Building

Details

• Personal Author:
  Faulkner D ; Fisk WJ ; Mendell MJ ; Sullivan D
• Description:
  During parts of 7 consecutive weeks, indoor and outdoor particle number concentrations and particle sizes were measured versus time in a large sealed air-conditioned office building without tobacco smoking. Building ventilation rates were also measured. During some periods, the normal filters in the building's air handling systems were replaced with high efficiency filters. A mass balance model was used to help interpret the study data, For all particle sizes, indoor number concentrations varied considerably between weeks and within a single work day. Even with the normal air filters, which have a low efficiency for submicron-size particles, indoor number concentrations of submicron particles were a factor of 3-6 smaller than outdoor particle number concentrations. For the range of particle sizes measured (> 0.3 mu m), the indoor particle mass concentration was considerably less than outdoor particle mass concentration. The high efficiency filters dramatically reduced the indoor-outdoor particle concentration ratio for submicron particles (i.e., the decrease was 70% to 95%, depending on particle size). For larger particles, the decreases in indoor concentrations were substantially smaller, Comparisons of model predictions with measured data provide evidence of a large rate of removal of submicron indoor particles by some process other than ventilation or air filtration and also provide evidence of significant indoor generation or resuspension of particles larger than 1 mu m. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollution Air Pollution, Indoor Dust Environmental Monitoring Occupational Health Particulate Matter Respiratory Hypersensitivity Respiratory System Respiratory Tract Diseases Safety Ventilation

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• Keywords:
  Air-monitoring Air-quality Air-quality-control Air-quality-measurement Air-samples Air-sampling-techniques Dust-exposure Dust-inhalation Dust-measurement Dust-particles Dust-sampling Dusts Inhalation-studies Particle-aerodynamics Particulate-sampling-methods Particulates Respiration Respiratory-hypersensitivity Respiratory-system-disorders Ventilation-equipment Ventilation-systems

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• ISSN:
  0278-6826
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  32
• Issue:
  6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20032676
• Citation:
  Aerosol Sci Technol 2000 Jun; 32(6):527-544
• Contact Point Address:
  WJ Fisk, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Indoor Environment Department, Environment Energy and Technology Division, MS 90-3058, Berkeley, CA 94720
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2000
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Aerosol Science and Technology
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:fac8fc301dc415fe7482485b6a36bcf1ac5d73e85975fa1da8b02a25e9b55be89f983509aa0ad86148d77391748bfd89b446e3b6b181419daeef447b0e3c3d1d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/186565/cdc_186565_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 446.72 KB ]