Abstract
In many communities, residential wood burning is the source of a significant fraction of wintertime PM2.5 and produces exposures to nearby residents inside their homes. To evaluate the magnitude of this effect, black carbon particles were measured as a proxy for woodsmoke indoors and outdoors in a community where residential woodsmoke is the only significant particle source. Thirteen indoor/outdoor measurement pairs were obtained at 4 different residences and showed an average indoor/outdoor concentration ratio of 0.78 ± 0.21 for residences without indoor generation. In addition, a time dependent mass balance model was used in conjunction with aethalometer measurements taken over 16 nights at a single residence to estimate an average air exchange rate of 0.26 ± 0.08 h-1, an average deposition loss rate of 0.08 ± 0.03 h-1, and an average penetration factor of 0.97 ± 0.02. Using a mechanistic approach which utilizes these average values in a steady state model, the predicted average infiltration factor was 0.74 for the residence studied. The high values for both measured I/O ratio and modeled infiltration factor show that residential environments provide inhabitants with relatively little protection from recently generated wood smoke particles.
Highlights
Residential wood burning is a significant source of wintertime particulate matter in many regions
12 hours integrated filter samples were taken simultaneously indoors and directly outdoors at four different residences on 6 nights during the winter. This sampling occurred in conjunction with an outdoor study of residential woodsmoke described by Thatcher et al [13]
Since outdoor black carbon concentrations typically peaked in the early evening and decreased around midnight, this timing had a higher probability of capturing an entire peak event
Summary
Residential wood burning is a significant source of wintertime particulate matter in many regions. The primary woodsmoke exposure is expected to occur indoors. Do many people spend most of their time indoors [1], but during peak periods of woodsmoke generation, evenings and nights, people are more. How to cite this paper: Thatcher, T.L., Kirchstetter, T.W., Malejan, C.J. and Ward, C.E. (2014) Infiltration of Black Carbon Particles from Residential Woodsmoke into Nearby Homes. Open Journal of Air Pollution, 3, 111-120. An understanding of the relationship between outdoor woodsmoke concentrations and the corresponding indoor concentration is critical when assessing the impact of woodsmoke on populations. A question of particular importance is whether sheltering indoors effectively reduces a person’s exposure to woodsmoke particles
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