Also, several factors (distance from traffic, number of persons, smoking, carpet and wood products' loads, the last painting time, and building age) of the indoor environments were taken into account statistically. For this purpose, factor analysis was applied to determine the source groups affecting the IAQ both during the winter and the summer. This study was performed to investigate and find the possible sources and seasonal and diurnal variations of indoor air pollutants (concentrations of VOCs, total viable bacteria, viable mold, and PM 2.5) in the four typical environments. It is possible to find many research projects dealing with one or several sides of IAQ however, few of them seek to assess the relationships between the components of the IAQ within the context of extensive field studies.
Numerous papers focusing on bioaerosols, fine or coarse particles (particulate matters with aerodynamic diameters ≤2.5 and 1) or the outdoors (I/O <1). When assessing the IAQ, consideration of different constituents, from organic and inorganic aerosols, to gases, should be helpful in characterizing the comfort range of the environment. In most cases, the air of our inner living spaces is not the same as the outdoor air in terms of both the composition and the level of pollutants. Two factors make this issue important: (1) people spend most of their time in indoor environments (e.g., house, workplace, or school) and (2) many common consumer products (e.g., cleaning agents, air fresheners, etc.) used in households, decorations, and building materials (e.g., pressed-wood products, carpet, binding agents, etc.) have the potential to emit primary or secondary air pollutants into indoor environments. Indoor air quality (IAQ) has become a major public concern because of its potential health effects, particularly in the last two decades. The overall results indicate that grab sampling in naturally ventilated places may overestimate or underestimate the IAQ due to the inhomogeneous composition of indoor air caused by irregular exchanges with the outdoor air according to the season and/or occupants' habits. According to factor analysis, several factors were found to be significantly influencing the indoor air quality (IAQ), and amongst them, VOC-based products used indoors ranked first. Among the VOCs, toluene was the most predominant, whereas elevated n-hexane levels were also observed in the kindergarten and the primary school, probably due to the frequent wet cleaning during school days. Bacteria levels were, in general, higher than fungi levels. Moreover, PM 2.5 and bioaerosol levels showed remarkable daily and diurnal variations, whereas a good correlation was found between the VOC levels measured in the morning and in the afternoon. The results indicated that bioaerosol, VOC, and PM 2.5 levels were higher in the winter than in the summer. Air pollution samplings were carried out in each microenvironment during five subsequent days in both winter and summer in Ankara, Turkey.
Bioaerosol levels and species, volatile organic compound (VOC) levels, and PM 2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm) levels were determined in different parts of these environments in parallel with outdoor sampling.
This study was performed to investigate the possible sources as well as seasonal and diurnal variations of indoor air pollutants in widely used four different environments (house, office, kindergarten, and primary school) in which people spend most of their time.
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