Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in Indoor Environments and Manufacturing Facilities

Ambient air contains a wide range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at trace concentration levels, e.g. parts per billion and trillion (ppb and ppt), that may have adverse health effects. In buildings, VOCs are emitted from materials such as glue from furniture and flooring, as biological metabolites from mold or insect infestations, from human activities such as cleaning and cooking, or from humans themselves. VOCs also permeate into indoor spaces from outdoor sources and underground. Since most people spend the majority of their time indoors, chronic exposure to these toxic VOCs and their chemical reaction products is a serious health concern. VOCs can also damage sensitive artwork  or biological collections in museums. This complex mixture of VOCs, the resulting chemistry, and its effect on human health is a highly active field of current research.

Real-time measurement of VOCs in indoor work or living environments and in closed manufacturing spaces can be useful to improve indoor air quality by quantifying human exposure to dangerous substances, ensuring manufacturing in a clean environment, or tracking dynamic changes in industrial processes.  Accurate measurements of these speciated VOCs that may be undergoing rapid changes requires an instrument that is extremely sensitive, fast and robust. Because they are capable of resolving and simultaneously monitoring large numbers of VOCs at sub ppb levels with extremely high time resolution, our TOFs are frequently used for online air monitoring.