Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Toxicity Issues: Indoor Air Quality
Maite de Blas
Abstract Indoor air quality (IAQ) has become an issue of interest, since people
spend most of the time indoors. This chapter reviews main indoor pollutants and
their sources. Considering existing World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines
for IAQ and toxicity, the pollutants considered here are asbestos, biological
pollutants, benzene, carbon monoxide (CO), formaldehyde, naphthalene, nitrogen
dioxide (NO
2
), particulate matter (PM), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs), radon, tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene. As key factors for the
improvement of IAQ, management of indoor emissions and ventilation improve-
ment in buildings are discussed.
1 Indoor Air Quality
1.1 Background
Historically, the field of atmospheric pollution has been concerned about outdoor
air pollution. Scientific community has widely studied air quality outdoors and
most of the legislation and regulatory programs worldwide have been focused on
ambient air quality (Godish
2004
). Indoor air quality (IAQ) began to be considered
a problem in the late 1960s and, first studies were performed about 10 years later
(Jones
1999
). Since then, building materials, consumer products, and personal
habits indoors have changed and, therefore, many chemicals present indoors now
were not there in the past (Weschler
2009
). IAQ is nowadays a main issue for
researchers motivated by the time that humans spend indoors, the wide range of
