Indoor air quality assessment in spaces designed for office activities: PAHs and phenols

A big number of studies prove that there is a strong relation between the quality of indoor
air in office environments and the health and productivity of people who work in these environments. The paper presents the results of a sampling campaign conducted in the autumn of 2014 in
an office building in Bucharest, located in an area characterized by a low level of pollution, in order
to determine the concentrations of PAHs and phenols from particulate matter. Parallel samplings
have being conducted both indoor and outdoor (I/O): in an office, a smoking place and outside the
building. The highest concentrations of particulate matter were found in outdoor air, 89.41 ± 40.44
µg/m3; at the semi-opened smoking place the concentration was 70.89 ± 26.24 µg/m3, and inside the
office, 45.89 ± 19.65 µg/m3. The average I/O ratio was 0.53, indicating a good isolation of the building
against particulate matter infiltration from outdoor and the absence of indoor sources of particulate
matter. In samples taken from outdoor and from the smoking place have been identified a number
of 13 PAHs with chrysene and benzo(a)pyrene being the most abundant and m, p-cresol and 2–3
xylenol among phenols. The results indicated that smoking places can have a big impact on indoor
air quality if they are not properly located in order to avoid the infiltration of PAHs inside offices.