HOBEL's project on human emissions featured in La Liberté
© 2022 EPFL
An international team led by principal investigator Dusan Licina and PhD student Marouane Merizak, together with collaborators from Danish Technical University, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and Finnish institute for Health and Welfare is pursing a SNSF-funded project titled: "Constituents of Human Particle, Microbial and Chemical Emissions, Dispersal Mechanisms and Exposures in Indoor Environments".
Buildings constitute a major source of particle and gaseous pollutants to which building occupants are exposed. These exposures are strongly associated to various health and well-being outcomes. Recently, humans have been recognized as important but overlooked air pollution sources that strongly influence the biological and chemical burden of indoor air. These emissions have been linked to eye and pulmonary irritation, but the health effects remain poorly understood. There is thus a need to explore the underlying mechanisms that drive the emissions, transformation and dispersal of particles, microbes and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from humans. The overall aim of this interdisciplinary study is to investigate the processes by which humans shape the microbiology and chemistry of indoor air through emissions of particles and gases, their secondary transformations in indoor air, and the resulting contributions to personal inhalation exposures.
The project’s objectives are to (1) characterize particles, microbes and volatile organic compounds emitted from humans and their transformations in indoor air under various personal (clothing, activities, and cognitive engagement) and environmental conditions (ozone concentration and ventilation rate); (2) characterize the mechanisms of particulate, microbial and volatile organic compounds dispersion from humans; (3) quantify contributions of human emissions to personal inhalation exposures.
Several recent studies identified building occupants as an emerging frontier among exposure-relevant indoor sources. The relative contribution of human-associated emissions indoor air pollutant burden is expected to further increase, owing to increased use of low-emission building materials, furnishing and some products, and due to better protection of buildings against outdoor air pollution. This is why our efforts to quantify human-associated emissions to particles, microbes and chemicals, and to understand mechanisms of their dispersion and associated exposures indoors, have potentially broad, although indirect implication for practice. At present, this aspect of human exposure is frequently ignored by conventional hygiene interventions, building ventilation and other building environmental management strategies. We believe that our project could lead to significant progress in building ventilation and air cleaning design and control, air quality sensing and hygiene and environmental management practices.
More information about La Liberté publication can be accessed here.
