The persistence of smoke VOCs indoors: Partitioning, surface cleaning, and air cleaning in a smoke-contaminated house.

ABSTRACT: Wildfires are increasing in frequency, raising concerns that smoke can permeate indoor environments and expose people to chemical air contaminants. To study smoke transformations in indoor environments and evaluate mitigation strategies, we added smoke to a test house. Many volatile organic compounds (VOCs) persisted days following the smoke injection, providing a longer-term exposure pathway for humans. Two time scales control smoke VOC partitioning: a faster one (1.0 to 5.2 hours) that describes the time to reach equilibrium between adsorption and desorption processes and a slower one (4.8 to 21.2 hours) that describes the time for indoor ventilation to overtake adsorption-desorption equilibria in controlling the air concentration. These rates imply that vapor pressure controls partition

SUBMITTER: Li J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10575580 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature