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Ozone: Friend or Foe?

By Julia Bakker-Arkema and Marina Vance.   When we think of “ozone”, many of us think about the hole in the ozone layer, located high up in the stratosphere—about 12 kilometers, or 7 miles above the earth’s surface. It’s much higher than Mount Everest and most types of clouds. The ozone layer is important because […]

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Total observed organic carbon indoors

Derek found that the total organic carbon concentration was impressively large, three times higher than what you’d find in a typical American city and ten times higher than clean ocean air. He also found that the compounds in the museum were significantly fresher – less oxidized – than those in outdoor air.

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New particle formation in the indoor environment

The presence of particles suspended in air is associated with negative health effects, including respiratory and cardiovascular issues. While some particles are emitted directly to the air from a source, such as from combustion, formation of new particles through atmospheric chemical reactions is less obvious to the casual citizen.

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The ARTISTIC Field Campaign: an interview with Demetrios Pagonis

One of the biggest conclusions from the ARTISTIC campaign is how much people and our indoor activities impact indoor air quality, from the emissions on our breath, the emissions that come from our activities and the chemical products that we use; these things all change the chemistry of indoor spaces.

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A Clothing Conundrum

Morrison remained at Berkeley for his PhD with Bill Nazaroff. Here, he took a more quantitative look into carpet and ozone chemistry, measuring yields of pollutants formed by carpets and making predictions to feed into a model. Morrison still likes to incorporate modelling in all of his projects. “If there isn’t a modelling component, I don’t feel like I know what is going on,” he explains.

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