Jianghui Liu
Scented consumer products are commonly used in residential buildings and application of these products can emit a variety of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into indoor environment. Emitted VOCs can undergo rapid oxidations with indoor oxidants to form secondary organic aerosol (SOA) under different mechanism. As people spend most of their time indoors, exposure to these air pollutants can imply underappreciated human health risks. With operation of mechanical ventilations, these pollutants can also be exported to outdoors, impacting outdoor air quality. This dissertation aims to evaluate the indoor gas- and particle-phase organic emissions as well as gas-phase indoor-to-outdoor transport during scented consumer product use by adopting cutting-edge online measurement instruments. Adopted instruments included a High-Resolution Electrical Low-Pressure Impactor (HR-ELPI+), a Proton Transfer Reaction Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (PTR-TOF-MS), and a newly developed Autonomous Rugged Optical Multigas Analyzer for VOCs (AROMA-VOC). A series of controlled experiments were conducted in the Purdue zero Energy Design Guidance for Engineers (zEDGE) Test House using scented wax products, hair styling products, and all-purpose cleaning agents. For VOC emissions, emission factors (EFs), emission rates (ERs), and inhalation intakes (iFs) were quantified using material balance model, while indoor-to-outdoor emission rates () were quantified through direct measurements at the building exhaust. For SOA emissions, the particle respiratory tract deposited doses (RTDDs) and dose rates (RTDDRs) were quantified using a multiple-path particle dosimetry (MPPD) model.