Tackling difficult problems through collaboration among multi-disciplinary research and industry

Abstract

Healthy building is a new trend after green buildings in the world. “WELL” was launched as the first guideline for healthy buildings in 2014 in USA. In 2017, China Healthy Building Assessment Standard was launched. Good indoor air quality is an important part for healthy buildings. The score of indoor air quality accounts for nearly 25 in the total score (100) in Healthy Building Assessment Standard (T/ASC 02-2016). The indoor air quality items in the standards are mainly based upon China Indoor Air Quality Standard (GB/T 18883-2001). However, the target indoor air pollutants in the both standards (T/ASC 02-2016 and GB/T 18883-2001) are not determined based upon the indoor air quality investigations in China. In order to revise the China Indoor Air Quality Standard (GB/T 18883-2001) and improve or develop the relevant indoor air quality control techniques, it’s necessary to know the important and unsolved problems in indoor air quality control in China. From them, the important scientific problems and key technical problems in China can be identified, and the gaps between the control demands and the levels of the related industries in China can be recognized. Then, various control approaches and strategies can be developed effectively. For this purpose, we present a series of important and unsolved problems in indoor air quality control in China: Identify the target indoor air pollutants and the corresponding thresholds based upon China’s indoor air quality situations, develop energy efficient engineering approaches to simultaneously control indoor air climate and quality, and develop the approach of scientific evaluation for indoor air quality control effect. The important scientific and key technical problems behind them are: The method of determining the target indoor air pollutants, the method of determining the thresholds of the target indoor air pollutants, the principle and method to overall control of indoor air climate and quality, the method of scientific evaluation for indoor air quality control effect not only based upon the concentrations of the target indoor air pollutants but also based upon the human health response. We are carrying out a national research project whose title is “study on fundamental problems and key technical approaches in indoor air quality control”. Based upon its research advance, we put forward a framework and understanding of solving the aforementioned problems: (1) Determining the target indoor air pollutants based upon the burden of diseases of indoor air pollutants in China. In the study, the burden of diseases of all target indoor air pollutants is obtained so that the overall burden of diseases of indoor air pollution can be roughly estimated. It’s a quantitative index to show the importance of indoor air quality problems in China. (2) Determining the corresponding thresholds of the indoor air pollutants based upon the control feasibility and the health benefit. The healthy benefit can be evaluated by the reduction of burden of diseases of the target indoor air pollutants which can also be equivalent as the reduction of economic loss. (3) Developing inverse problem and variation method to identify the optimal control systems and operative strategies. It’s an original novel approach for indoor air quality control. (4) Developing some partial space and/or partial time control approaches for indoor air quality. (5) Developing novel evaluation method for control effect by using biomarker-based techniques. (6) Narrowing or even removing the gaps between the indoor air quality control related industries. The indoor air quality control standards in those industries shouldn’t conflict each other. (7) Applying various newly-developed sensors and big data techniques to understand the links between the indoor air quality and human health response. New on-line monitoring sensors with acceptable precision, together with some new big-data analysis methods are strongly needed. To tackling the above problems which are related to many disciplines, collaboration among multi-disciplinary research and industries is very important.