AAAR 37th Annual Conference October 14 - October 18, 2019 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
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Spatial Distribution of Indoor Aerosol during HOMEChem Cooking Events
ERIN K. BOEDICKER, Delphine K. Farmer, Marina Vance, Colorado State University
Abstract Number: 729 Working Group: The Air We Breathe: Indoor Aerosol Sources and Chemistry
Abstract Cooking is a major contributor to fine (100 nm – 2.5 µm) and ultrafine (<100 nm) aerosol concentrations indoors. Understanding the indoor dynamics that impact these aerosols is crucial in order to assess overall human exposure. This work aims to further characterize aerosol emissions from cooking, investigate the spatial and temporal gradients caused by the mechanisms of aerosol transport indoors, and determine the major loss mechanisms for particles indoors. In order to probe these different elements of indoor aerosol sources a variety of cooking experiments (e.g. stir-fry, toast, chili, etc.) were conducted during the House Observations of Microbial and Environmental Chemistry (HOMEChem) campaign. The emissions from these experiments were measured using size resolved optical instruments at four points throughout the house simultaneously. During background periods, aerosol concentration indoors was, on average, 50 ± 10% lower than the observed outdoor concentration, however, during cooking events the concentration indoors was measured to be 70 ± 30% to 180 ± 20% higher than outdoors, depending on the room and the cooking event. The majority of particles emitted during these events were less than 100nm in diameter (CMD ranged from 85 to 170 nm depending on the cooking experiment). After emission, the particles took approximately 0.7 ± 0.1 minutes to reach the living room, with a 60 ± 10% decrease in concentration, and they took 2.4 ± 0.9 minutes to reach the bedroom, with an 87 ± 2% reduction in concentration. Deposition was found to be the dominate loss process with loss rates ranging from 0.00005 to 0.0005 s-1 and deposition velocities ranging from 0.02 to 0.05 m/s depending on size of the particles.