Abstract
Abstract. Homogeneous reactivity has been extensively studied in recent years through outdoor air-quality simulations. However, indoor atmospheres are known to be largely influenced by another type of chemistry, which is their reactivity with surfaces. Despite progress in the understanding of heterogeneous reactions, such reactions remain barely integrated into numerical models. In this paper, a room-scale, indoor air-quality (IAQ) model is developed to represent both heterogeneous and homogeneous chemistry. Thanks to the introduction of sorbed species, deposition and surface reactivity are treated as two separate processes, and desorption reactions are incorporated. The simulated concentrations of inorganic species are compared with experimental measurements acquired in a real room, thus allowing calibration of the model's undetermined parameters. For the duration of the experiments, the influence of the simulation's initial conditions is strong. The model succeeds in simulating the four inorganic species concentrations that were measured, namely NO, NO2, HONO and O3. Each parameter is then varied to estimate its sensitivity and to identify the most prevailing processes. The air-mixing velocity and the building filtration factor are uncertain parameters that appear to have a strong influence on deposition and on the control of transport from outdoors, respectively. As expected, NO2 surface hydrolysis plays a key role in the production of secondary species. The secondary production of NO by the reaction of sorbed HONO with sorbed HNO3 stands as an essential component to integrate into IAQ models.
Highlights
At a time when sustainable development requires more effort than ever, the improvement of building isolation has become a major concern in the field of construction and renovation
It is established that indoor atmospheres are more polluted than those outdoors, while we spend most of our time in indoor environments: up to 90 % in developed countries (Carslaw, 2007)
Whereas numerical simulations appear to be a standard approach for the study of outdoor atmospheres, they are less common in the field of indoor environments
Summary
At a time when sustainable development requires more effort than ever, the improvement of building isolation has become a major concern in the field of construction and renovation. As air remains more confined with a lower exchange rate with the outdoors, the pollutants generated indoors have fewer possibilities to escape, which raises health issues. It is established that indoor atmospheres are more polluted than those outdoors, while we spend most of our time in indoor environments: up to 90 % in developed countries (Carslaw, 2007). In this context, indoor air quality (IAQ) is bound to be an increasingly important issue. Whereas numerical simulations appear to be a standard approach for the study of outdoor atmospheres, they are less common in the field of indoor environments. Processes relying on the surface-tovolume ratio, which are still not fully understood but often negligible outdoors, are predominantly important in indoor environments (Weschler, 2011)
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