Assessment of PM10 and PM2.5 Concentrations at Different Floor Levels of USM Health Campus’s Library

Abstract

Library plays an important role in education and research materials especially used by university students. And it is known that university students prefer to spend most of their time in the library. There are multifactorial of high concentration of pollutants in a building, thus library is the best choice in this study to prove it. The purpose of this study is to assess the indoor air quality (IAQ) in library at USM Health Campus, Kota Bharu, Kelantan. The comparison of PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations between different floor levels of library was determined. This study was also conducted to obtain the relation between PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations with the number of occupants, temperature, relative humidity and total number of books. Particulate matter concentrations were measured at library by using Handheld 3016 IAQ Particle Counter. The data was collected for eight hours for each floor with five minutes time interval. Based on Kruskal Wallis test, there were significant differences of PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations between floor levels (p<0.05). Number of occupants was found significant to PM2.5 concentrations through Spearman Correlation test (p<0.05). Furthermore, two of environmental factors (temperature and relative humidity) were found poorly significant with PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations which r-value were less than 0.3 (r-PM10=0.22, r-PM2.5=-0.15; r-PM10=-0.17, r-PM2.5=0.2). Number of books and different floor surface area of library were obtained as contributing factor which increased PM concentration. In conclusion, cleaning and housekeeping activities in library need to regularly practice to minimize IAQ problems in order to provide a healthier indoor environment.