Open Journal of Air Pollution

Volume 3, Issue 4 (December 2014)

ISSN Print: 2169-2653   ISSN Online: 2169-2661

Google-based Impact Factor: 1.67  Citations  

Infiltration of Black Carbon Particles from Residential Woodsmoke into Nearby Homes

HTML  XML Download Download as PDF (Size: 3351KB)  PP. 111-120  
DOI: 10.4236/ojap.2014.34011    4,959 Downloads   6,668 Views  Citations

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.

Share and Cite:

Thatcher, T. , Kirchstetter, T. , Malejan, C. and Ward, C. (2014) Infiltration of Black Carbon Particles from Residential Woodsmoke into Nearby Homes. Open Journal of Air Pollution, 3, 111-120. doi: 10.4236/ojap.2014.34011.

Cited by

[1] Outdoor and indoor measurements of number particles size distributions and equivalent black carbon (EBC) at a mechanical manufacturing plant
Atmospheric Pollution …, 2022
[2] Ambient sampling of real-world residential wood combustion plumes
Journal of the Air & …, 2022
[3] Health risk assessment of black carbon emission from fossil fuel
Journal of Engineering, 2021
[4] Health Risk Assessment of Black Carbon Emission from Fossil Fuel.
2021
[5] Detecting Wildfire Emissions in the Indoor Environment
2020
[6] Thermally modified calcium oxalate phytoliths as markers for biomass fire sources
MICROSCOPE, 2020
[7] Contribution of residential combustion to ambient air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions
2016
[8] Wildfire Smoke Exposure: a Comparative Study between Two Analytical Approaches; Particle Assemblage Analysis and Soot, Char and Ash Analysis
2016

Copyright © 2025 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.