An assessment of indoor air quality in the maintenance room at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport

Abstract

In Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport (RHIA)-Lebanon, direct openings exist between the apron and the arrivals hall providing a pathway for contaminated air to enter the buildings. Also, airport employees spend no less than 12 h inside the airport's buildings and experience respiratory symptoms. Therefore, the influence of Beirut-RHIA's activities on the indoor air quality of the maintenance room in the control tower (impact on employees) was the focus of this study. This is the first study to assess the speciation of 46 Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor air of an airport workplace. Measurements, conducted during June and October 2014, has focused, in particular, on nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), key ozone and PM precursors emitted from aircraft exhaust. Gas chromatographic techniques (GC-FID) were used to assess the concentrations of 46 VOCs, whereas colorimetric methods were adopted to determine NO2 concentrations. In general, the concentrations of measured VOCs did not present any risks except for acrolein, and NO2 concentrations inside the maintenance room were significantly below the World Health Organization (WHO) annual threshold limit (40 μg m−3). An interesting correlation was observed between aircraft number and the concentration of light aldehydes/ketones measured in the maintenance room. This is the first study dedicated to assess the speciation of a large number of VOCs in a work place environment in Lebanon.