Abstract
High indoor air quality is crucial for the health of human beings. The purpose of this work is to analyze the synergistic effect of particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration on occupant satisfaction and work productivity. This study carried out a real-scale experiments in a meeting room with exposures of up to one hour. Indoor environment parameters, including air temperature, relative humidity, illuminance, and noise level, were controlled at a reasonable level. Twenty-nine young participants were participated in the experiments. Four mental tasks were conducted to quantitatively evaluate the work productivity of occupants and a questionnaire was used to access participants’ satisfaction. The Spearman correlation analysis and two-way analysis of variance were applied. It was found that the overall performance declined by 1% for every 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 concentration. Moreover, for every 10% increase in dissatisfaction with air quality, productivity performance decreased by 1.1% or more. It should be noted that a high CO2 concentration (800 ppm) has a stronger negative effect on occupant satisfaction towards air quality than PM2.5 concentration in a non-ventilated room. In order to obtain optimal occupant satisfaction and work productivity, low concentrations of PM2.5 (<50 μg/m3) and CO2 (<700 ppm) are recommended.
Highlights
Accepted: 10 April 2021People spend more than 80% of their time in enclosed buildings [1,2]
This study presents data from PM2.5 and CO2 exposure evaluations on occupant satisfaction and work productivity in a simulated meeting room
The results indicate that every 1 μg/m3 increment of indoor PM2.5 concentration would increase the dissatisfied rate by 0.5% at a low CO2 condition and 1.1% at a high CO2 condition
Summary
Accepted: 10 April 2021People spend more than 80% of their time in enclosed buildings [1,2]. Wyon (1996) concluded that individual control of the air temperature helps to reduce the risk of sick building syndrome (SBS) and improve work productivity [5]. Toftum et al (2002) showed that a decrease in air temperature from 23 ◦ C to 18 ◦ C provides better satisfaction towards air quality In the meantime, it has no significant influence on the risk of sick building syndrome (SBS) for a short time [6]. Wong et al (2008) proposed a series of logistic models, which are based on data from 293 occupants, to predict the acceptance of indoor environment quality in offices In those models, operative temperature, CO2 concentration, the noise level, and the illumination level are included [8].
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