• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2024

Children are vulnerable to bad indoor air quality, and many researches on indoor air quality have been done with various methodologies. Herein, we used the genetic algorithm, one of the optimization methods, for the analysis based on better estimation values that are not easy to measure. A children playroom and a Taekwondo gym were chosen for the different degree of physical activity. After estimation of the number of occupants, the generation degree of CO2 and PM2.5 were determined from the data of the indoor air quality monitors. Relative errors were below 1% for all cases. Due to many air-treating electronics, the PM2.5 in the children playroom was well-managed compared to that in the Taekwondo gym. The PM2.5-generating activities were calculated and that of the Taekwondo gym was higher than that of the children playroom. The PM2.5 generating values were on the positive relationship with CO2 generating values. This means that we can obtain meaningful information from limited measurement data. For the numerous children facilities, indoor air quality can be easily analyzed and this might contribute to enhancing the children health.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.79-87
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• 2009

Residential Buildings should provide high-quality, comfortable environments to support the activities of their occupants. The indoor environment of residential buildings, which includes thermal, lighting, acoustic, and indoor air quality, has a significant impact on health and quality of life. The comfortable living environment in residential buildings result from appropriately combining these environmental quality factors, and the performance of building systems must be compatible with the activities of the occupants. The objective of this research is to investigate and analyze the relationship between physical environmental conditions and occupant responses for improving environmental quality (EQ) in apartment buildings with four different building orientations (i.e. E, W, S, N) in two different seasons (i.e. winter and summer). The occupant survey was conducted in actual apartment buildings. The Physical environmental conditions in apartment buildings differed substantially depending on space, outdoor weather conditions and building orientations. Each space within the same apartment building had different environmental conditions. Combinations of unbalanced physical environmental conditions in apartment building decrease occupants' satisfactions and their perceptions of overall residential quality. Occupants' satisfaction and their responses to physical characteristics of their residential environment is related to thermal, lighting, acoustic, and indoor air conditions in their buildings. The result from this research will help designers and researchers to identify problems and develop solutions for improving environmental quality from the occupants' point of view.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.10
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• pp.217-223
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to measure the indoor air quality of small-scale apartments and then proposed a method to improve the indoor air quality of the small-scale apartments by comparing with the result of indoor air quality in the Clean-Healthy House. In case of formaldehyde, a highly volatile organic compound, the concentrations of indoor measured both in small-scale apartments and the Clean Healthy houses did not exceed- the guideline of Korea. The guideline of Korea for acetaldehyde was not available, so the guidelines of Japan and the World Health Organization were used to measure the concentration of acetaldehyde. The study results demonstrated that three out of seven small-scale apartments investigated exceeded the guideline of Japan; and the preliminary research on the Clean-Health Houses was low at about 30-60% of the guideline of Japan. The result of the VOCs measurement showed that toluene, ethylbenzene, and styrene in some small-scale apartments exceeded the guideline of Korea. However, the Clean-Healthy Houses in the previous studies did not exceed the guideline of Korea with regard to all the pollutants. Therefore, this study suggests the application of the construction standards of the Clean-Healthy house in order to improve the indoor air quality of small-scale apartments. In addition, the current study anticipates that improvement of the indoor air quality in the residential environments should be universally applied, not limited to the type and size of the residence.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.67-74
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• 2024

Purpose: The identification and quantification of indoor airborne contaminants, including bio-aerosols, particulates, and gaseous contaminants, are crucial for maintaining acceptable indoor air quality for hospital operating rooms (ORs). Laparoscopic surgery has become widely accepted for various surgical procedures due to its rapid recovery rate and the low risk associated with small incisions compared to conventional open surgery. The objective of this study is to investigate the indoor air quality in hospital ORs and to identify indoor airborne contaminants generated during laparoscopic surgery. Methods: Measurements of an indoor environment, including temperature, humidity and air quality, were performed in an OR before and during a laparoscopic surgery. Indoor airborne contaminants, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), formaldehyde, carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), suspended indoor particles, and airborne bacteria, were measured simultaneously. Results: The study determined that the concentrations of indoor air particles and airborne bacteria increased during the surgery but were within acceptable levels. However, the concentration of CO₂, reached a high level of 1,791 ppm due to the CO₂ gas required for maintaining the pneumoperitoneum during the surgery. Implications: The results emphasized the use of ventilation and filtration in a laparoscopic surgery room to lower the concentration of filterable and non-filterable contaminants.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.25-37
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• 2002

The purpose of the study was to survey the distribution patterns of inorganic elements of PM-10 in the various indoor environments and analyze the pollution patterns of aerosol in various places of indoor environment using a pattern recognition method based on cluster analysis and disjoint principal component analysis. A total of 40 samples in the indoor had been collected using mini-vol portable samplers. These samples were analyzed for their 19 bulk inorganic compounds such as B, Na, Mg, Al, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Cd, Ba, Ce, and Pb by using an ICP-MS. By applying a disjoint principal component analysis, four patterns of the indoor air pollutions were distinguished. The first pattern was identified as a group with high concentrations of PM-10, Na, Mg, and Ca. The second pattern was identified as a group with high concentrations B, Mg, At, Ca, Fe, Cu, and Ba. The third pattern was a group of sites with high concentrations of K, Zn. Cd. The fourth pattern was a group with low concentrations PM-10 and all inorganic elements. This methodology was found to be helpful enough to set the criteria standard of indoor air quality, corresponding pollutants, and classification of indoor environment categories when making an indoor air quality law.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.111-117
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• 2006

The harmfulness of HCHO and VOCs from construction material and furniture has been increased gradually. It must be need to prevent pollution materials' accumulation indoor effectively and to remove very small amount of harmful pollution materials in various plans, because these kinds of pollution materials greatly affect human body, Therefore, this study is focused to find out the improvements of Indoor Air Quality in execution of natural ventilation and bakeout to reduce indoor chemical pollution materials or not. After effects of indoor air quality by natural ventilation and bake-out being examined, it is follows the conclusion. As for the density change of TVOC and Toluene according to time lapse, in case the middle and high-story areas have bake-out, the density increased once, but it showed the gradual decrease after bake-out was stopped, and it was shown that it exceeded the standards recommended for newly built apartment. The bake-out is effective to discharge the HCHO and TVOC from the construction material and the furniture, and the natural ventilation is effective remove the indoor pollution materials.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.767-777
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• 2004

This study evaluated the technical feasibility of the application of $TiO_2$ photocatalysis for the removal of volatile hydrocarbons(VHC) at low ppb concentrations commonly associated with non-occupational indoor air quality issues. A series of experiments was conducted to evaluate five parameters (relative humidity (RH), hydraulic diameter (HD), feeding type (FT) of VHC, photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) reactor material (RM), and inlet port size (IPS) of PCO reactor) for the PCO destruction efficiencies of the selected target VHC. None of the target VHC presented significant dependence on the RH, which are inconsistent with a certain previous study that reported that under conditions of low humidity and a ppm toluene inlet level, there was a drop in the PCO efficiency with decreasing humidity. However, it is noted that the four parameters (HD, RM, FT and IPS) should be considered for better VHC removal efficiencies for the application of $TiO_2$ photocatalytic technology for cleansing non-occupational indoor air. The PCO destruction of VHC at concentrations associated with non-occupational indoor air quality issues can be up to nearly 100%. The amount of CO generated during PCO were a negligible addition to the indoor CO levels. These abilities can make the PCO reactor an important tool in the effort to improve non-occupational indoor air quality.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.28-38
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• 1994

The objective of this study were to measure concentrations of indoor pollutants in public transportation systems to provide importance of indoor air quality in transportation systems to policy makers. Indoor air quality of the pollutants (CO, CO$_2$, PM-10) and environmental sources (temperature, humidity) were measured at subway, seat-type bus, and city-type bus in the Seoul area from April to September 1992. The same pollutants and environmental sources were also measured at selected bus stops and subway stations during October 1991-September 1992. The mean concentrations of indoor pollutants in the public transportation systems were showed 115.5 $\mu$g/m$^3$ in PM-10, 6.8 ppm in CO, and 2167.9 ppm in CO$_2$, respectively. The mean values of PM-10 and CO showed below the U.S. 24 hour standard value of PM-10 and the Korea ambient CO standard, while the mean concentrations of CO$_2$ exceeded the Korea CO$_2$ standard. The highest levels of indoor concentration at public transportation systems were PM-10 of 134.6 $\mu$g/m$^3$ in the subway, CO of 8.9 ppm in the city-type bus, CO$_2$ of 2,511.1ppm in seat-type bus, respectively. The results showed that indoor air quality in bus and subway seemed likely to be affected by number of passengers and outdoor air infiltrated from exhausted gases of automobiles.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.1043-1049
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to improve indoor air quality of the barracks which have been changed from floor-type living barracks to bed-type living barracks since 2003. Therefore, the ventilation rates of newly constructed two type barracks were simulated with the various building materials including VOCs and HCHO components. And indoor air quality of two type living barracks was measured by the field experiments. With these steps, the measures for upgrading indoor air quality depending on building material types and ventilation rate are suggested.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.627-628
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• 2008

This paper proposes an indoor air Quality monitoring system for measuring various indoor air qualities using IEEE 802.15.4 based wireless sensor network. For indoor air quality monitoring, sensor nodes include carbon monoxide sensor and dust sensor were used. The wireless network by deployed sensor nodes has limited energy, computing, communication capabilities and memory sizes. In this paper, the query process in indoor air quality monitoring was designed to improve the limited sensor node resources such as battery consumption and networking.