How About Some Air Pollution With That Thanksgiving Meal?

For many in the USA, this week’s Thanksgiving will be a time of coming together as a family – eating great food, cooking and cleaning – and, very possibly being exposed to unhealthy air at home.

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Chemists move indoors to measure the air quality in our homes

Atmospheric chemists have spent decades upon decades focused on understanding the quality of outdoor air. But given the lopsided ratio of time humans spend indoors versus outdoors, some of these researchers are shifting their attention. They want to use the tools they’ve developed for monitoring outdoor air and start making the same sorts of measurements inside.

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Sloan Foundation 2018 Annual Report

“Preliminary data suggest that the chemistry of indoor air is every bit as complex and dynamic as outdoor air, that it can change radically in short timeframes, that it can be much dirtier than we previously expected, and that human activities are major players in the indoor chemistry of a home.”

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Take a deep breath? Investigating indoor air pollution

New studies are uncovering how emissions from daily household activities pollute the air we breathe at home.

Ages: 11-14, 14-16, 16-19

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Cleaning with bleach could create indoor air pollutants

Bleach cleaning products emit chlorine-containing compounds, such as hypochlorous acid (HOCl) and chlorine gas (Cl2), that can accumulate to relatively high levels in poorly ventilated indoor environments.

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Mixing bleach and citrus cleaners may be harmful to you and your pets

By themselves, limonenes aren’t toxic. But when they come into contact with light or air, they can oxidize and become irritating to eyes and skin… Researchers from the University of Toronto and Bucknell University in Pennsylvania decided to see what might happen when limonene and bleach fumes, at concentrations likely to occur in indoor environments, were combined.

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Environmental scientists express concern about indoor air pollution

When chemicals are emitted indoors, their concentration levels are much higher than outdoor levels, she said. She suspects there are more chemicals in indoor air than what is currently known, noting that an Environmental Protection Agency database lists more than 75,000 chemicals in 15,000 consumer products, most of which don’t have toxicology or exposure data.

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Indoor air pollution: the invisible adversary

For the HOMEChem project, researchers deployed sensors and air quality monitors to make observations on change in air quality during regular activities such as cooking.

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Pig-Pen effect: Mixing skin oil and ozone can produce a personal pollution cloud

When ozone and skin oils meet, the resulting reaction may help remove ozone from an indoor environment, but it can also produce a personal cloud of pollutants that affects indoor air quality, according to a team of researchers.

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