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Improving the Indoor Air Quality in Nursery Buildings in United Arab Emirates

Children inhale indoor air at 400 mL/min∙kg per body weight, 2.76 times more than adults. They have weaker immunity than adults and are more exposed to asthma, allergies, and atopic diseases. The objective of this paper is to suggest effective management and improvement measures for indoor air quali...

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Autores principales: Arar, Mohammad, Jung, Chuloh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8620772/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34831846
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182212091
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author Arar, Mohammad
Jung, Chuloh
author_facet Arar, Mohammad
Jung, Chuloh
author_sort Arar, Mohammad
collection PubMed
description Children inhale indoor air at 400 mL/min∙kg per body weight, 2.76 times more than adults. They have weaker immunity than adults and are more exposed to asthma, allergies, and atopic diseases. The objective of this paper is to suggest effective management and improvement measures for indoor air quality for nurseries. As a methodology, 16 nurseries (total of 35 classrooms) were selected to measure the indoor air quality compared with WHO IAQ Standard, and identify the daily concentration change of the pollutants. Based on the measurements, IAQ improvements for selected facilities are carried out to compare the results before and after improvement. The result has shown that the concentration of Carbon Dioxide (CO(2)), Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC), Total Suspended Particles (TSP) and formaldehyde (CH(2)O) exceeds WHO IAQ standards. The concentration of CO(2) and TSP is changed mainly by physical activity of children and that of CH(2)O and TVOC is changed mainly by ventilation after school start. TVOC decreased by 46.4% and the TSP decreased by 21.7% after air purifier, but CH(2)O and TVOC increased 1.8–3.8 times after interior renovation with low-emission finishing materials. After new ventilation installation, the CH(2)O and TVOC reduced half and the TSP reduced one third. It is proven that the most effective way to reduce the concentration of air pollutants in nurseries is the installation of a new ventilation system, followed by an air purifier. The renovation with low-emission finishing materials cannot improve IAQ in a short period of time.
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spelling pubmed-86207722021-11-27 Improving the Indoor Air Quality in Nursery Buildings in United Arab Emirates Arar, Mohammad Jung, Chuloh Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Children inhale indoor air at 400 mL/min∙kg per body weight, 2.76 times more than adults. They have weaker immunity than adults and are more exposed to asthma, allergies, and atopic diseases. The objective of this paper is to suggest effective management and improvement measures for indoor air quality for nurseries. As a methodology, 16 nurseries (total of 35 classrooms) were selected to measure the indoor air quality compared with WHO IAQ Standard, and identify the daily concentration change of the pollutants. Based on the measurements, IAQ improvements for selected facilities are carried out to compare the results before and after improvement. The result has shown that the concentration of Carbon Dioxide (CO(2)), Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC), Total Suspended Particles (TSP) and formaldehyde (CH(2)O) exceeds WHO IAQ standards. The concentration of CO(2) and TSP is changed mainly by physical activity of children and that of CH(2)O and TVOC is changed mainly by ventilation after school start. TVOC decreased by 46.4% and the TSP decreased by 21.7% after air purifier, but CH(2)O and TVOC increased 1.8–3.8 times after interior renovation with low-emission finishing materials. After new ventilation installation, the CH(2)O and TVOC reduced half and the TSP reduced one third. It is proven that the most effective way to reduce the concentration of air pollutants in nurseries is the installation of a new ventilation system, followed by an air purifier. The renovation with low-emission finishing materials cannot improve IAQ in a short period of time. MDPI 2021-11-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8620772/ /pubmed/34831846 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182212091 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Arar, Mohammad
Jung, Chuloh
Improving the Indoor Air Quality in Nursery Buildings in United Arab Emirates
title Improving the Indoor Air Quality in Nursery Buildings in United Arab Emirates
title_full Improving the Indoor Air Quality in Nursery Buildings in United Arab Emirates
title_fullStr Improving the Indoor Air Quality in Nursery Buildings in United Arab Emirates
title_full_unstemmed Improving the Indoor Air Quality in Nursery Buildings in United Arab Emirates
title_short Improving the Indoor Air Quality in Nursery Buildings in United Arab Emirates
title_sort improving the indoor air quality in nursery buildings in united arab emirates
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8620772/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34831846
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182212091
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