Field characterization of submicron aerosols from indoor combustion sources

Abstract

Indoor combustion sources, such as cigarette smoke, mosquito-coil smoke, and joss stick smoke, are the dominant emissions of indoor air pollutants in the Asian countries. The field evaluations of the size distributions of these indoor combustion sources were conducted in a first-floor apartment in Taipei. The size distributions of the submicron aerosols were determined by a high resolution particle sizer, capable of measuring particles in the size range of 0.01 to 1 μm. The number concentrations of indoor submicron particles varied from 10 4 to 10 7 cm −3, highly depending on the types of the indoor activities. The changes of the number concentrations and size distributions before, during, and after the aerosol generations were compared. The number median diameters (with geometric standard deviation (GSD)) of smoldering cigarettes, burning mosquito coils, burning joss sticks, and background conditions were 85 nm (2.21), 80 nm (1.89), 70 nm (1.99), and 70 nm (2.00), respectively. Regarding the surface area-weighted size distributions, the average surface median diameters (with GSD) of the four situations mentioned above were 190 nm (1.67), 260 nm (2.34), 180 nm (1.95), and 210 nm (2.00), respectively. Additionally, the average volume median diameters (with GSD) were 240 nm (1.57), 280 nm (1.91), 270 nm (1.82), and 330 nm (1.86), respectively.