Indoor Air Quality in Buildings: A Comprehensive Review on the Factors Influencing Air Pollution in Residential and Commercial Structure.

Mehzabeen Mannan,Sami G Al-Ghamdi

doi:10.3390/ijerph18063276

Abstract

Worldwide people tend to spend approximately 90% of their time in different indoor environments. Along with the penetration of outside air pollutants, contaminants are produced in indoor environments due to different activities such as heating, cooling, cooking, and emissions from building products and the materials used. As people spend most of their lives in indoor environments, this has a significant influence on human health and productivity. Despite the two decades of indoor air quality (IAQ) research from different perspectives, there is still a lack of comprehensive evaluation of peer-reviewed IAQ studies that specifically covers the relationship between the internal characteristics of different types of building environments with IAQ to help understand the progress and limitations of IAQ research worldwide. Therefore, this review of scientific studies presents a broad spectrum of pollutants identified in both residential and commercial indoor environments, highlighting the trends and gaps in IAQ research. Moreover, analysis of literature data enabled us to assess the different IAQs in buildings located in different countries/regions, thus reflecting the current global scientific understanding of IAQ. This review has the potential to benefit building professionals by establishing indoor air regulations that account for all indoor contaminant sources to create healthy and sustainable building environments.

Highlights

Received: 14 February 2021Accepted: 9 March 2021Published: 22 March 2021Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Research on the urban population has confirmed that people spend more than 90% of their daily lifespan in indoor environments
As people spend a majority of their time in indoor environments, exposure to indoor air pollutants has a significant impact on both human health and effectiveness in the workplace
Due to continuous changes in living style and the materials used in indoor environments, there have been significant changes in terms of the nature and complex compositions of indoor air pollutants, which opens up avenues that need to be investigated in detail

Summary

Introduction

Received: 14 February 2021Accepted: 9 March 2021Published: 22 March 2021Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Research on the urban population has confirmed that people spend more than 90% of their daily lifespan in indoor environments. As people spend a majority of their time in indoor environments, exposure to indoor air pollutants has a significant impact on both human health and effectiveness in the workplace. Research on air quality has mostly focused on the outdoors, whereas indoor air quality (IAQ) and its impacts have received considerably less attention until the last decade [2]. Both scientists and the public have focused on risks associated with IAQ because research has established that indoor air is more contaminated than outdoor air [3]. Due to continuous changes in living style and the materials used in indoor environments, there have been significant changes in terms of the nature and complex compositions of indoor air pollutants, which opens up avenues that need to be investigated in detail

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