Size-resolved splashed cooking oil droplets from 1 to 1000 μm on surfaces: The impact of residential range hoods

Abstract

Cooking-emitted pollution is a major health concern in residential buildings. Compared to actively sampled cooking-emitted airborne pollutants with a focus on the intake portion through the respiratory system, the characteristics of splashed cooking particles deposited on surfaces are largely understudied. Using the 3D fluorescent microscopic passive testing method, this manuscript presents one of the first studies to quantify the size-resolved splashed cooking oil droplets on surfaces of the countertop, wall, and dummy considering the impact of the range hood. We found that locations closer to the pot had a higher surface exposure probability by area, which was dominated by large particles. In contrast, the size-resolved results showed that oil droplets within 1–100 μm dominated the number concentrations on surfaces and deposited more at locations far away from the pot, such as the head region and countertop surfaces 1.00 m from the pot. For the same locations, horizontal surfaces collected more oil droplets than vertical surfaces. Use of the range hood successfully mitigated greater than 95.8% and 77.7% of the particles smaller than 200 and 50 μm deposited on horizontal and vertical surfaces, respectively, but showed no efficacy for larger particles. We did not see the benefit of using a higher airflow rate of the range hood to mitigate particles deposited on surfaces.