A framework to interpret passively sampled indoor-air VOC concentrations in health studies

摘要

For an appropriate assessment of personal exposure in the indoor environment we suggest a framework for the utilization of VOC data measured by means of passive sampling. On the basis of 2246 measurements of 47 VOCs in flats in Leipzig, Germany, we explain how the concentrations have to be preprocessed for each VOC in order to come to a reliable assessment of the peak and cumulative exposures. Such adjustments are needed because of temporal variations in the concentration occurring due to season, renovation, application of dispersion paint and novel furnishing. For that purpose, robust conversion factors are derived with quantile regression. We also estimate the decay after renovation activities, e.g. for alpha-pinene the decay is (9.6 +/- 3.7)% per month; the estimated half-life period for a-pinene is (7.2 +/- 2.8) months, and (1.8 +/- 0.4) months for dodecane.