AAAR 36th Annual Conference October 16 - October 20, 2017 Raleigh Convention Center Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Abstract View
Lung Deposited Surface Area and Black Carbon in Urban High Rise Apartments
DONGHYUN RIM, Gwi Nam Bae, Jong Bum Kim, Chang Hyeok Kim, Pennsylvania State University
Abstract Number: 566 Working Group: Indoor Aerosols
Abstract Human exposure to ultrafine particles (UFP) has been associated with adverse health effects such as pulmonary, cardiovascular, and premature illness. Lung-deposited particle surface area is closely linked to toxicity of particles. Few studies have characterized time-resolved lung-deposited surface area (LDSA) in urban residential environments. The objective of this study is to investigate LDSA and BC concentrations as well as residential exposure profiles in four high-rise apartments in a mega-city, Seoul, Korea.
Time-varying lung-deposited surface area (LDSA) and BC concentrations were continuously measured over a period of 60 hours in 4 high-rise apartments. UFP concentrations were measured using a NanoScan SMPS that monitored size-resolved concentrations in the size range of 10-420 nm. LDSA for the alveolar region was monitored by using Nanoparticle Aerosol Monitor (NAM) based on diffusion charging of sampled particles. Total suspended black carbon (BC) mass was monitored using an Aethalometer (Magee 133 Scientific, AE51) that measured absorbance from particles deposited on the filter and converted the absorbance to BC mass concentration. Indoor cooking stove types and cooking activities as well as window opening events were recorded during the measurements.
The results show that LDSA at eight apartments, averaged over 60-h monitoring at each site, ranged from 40 to 150 µm2/cm3, which are generally higher than urban background levels in other cities reported in the literature. Higher ranges of LDSA occurred mainly due to indoor cooking activities and penetration of outdoor particles via open windows. For the eight apartments, infiltration factor for UFP varied from 0.22 to 0.65 depending on the particle size and ventilation conditions, while it ranges from 0.55 to 0.84 for BC. The percentage of daily-integrated residential exposure to UFP attributable to particles of outdoor origin was 26-62% for the residents of the apartments.