Testing swimming poor air quality
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I feel that the air quality at the indoor pool my children compete and practice in is unhealthy. How do I learn about testing the air levels and using the exhaust system correctly? I have 3 children, one has been diagnosed with exercise asthma and the other two complain it is hard to breathe at times. I do not want to cause long term damage even though this is a sport they are pretty serious about. Thank You
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Those running swimming pools are mostly concerned with the water in the pool, rather than the air above it. Most pools use chlorine releasing agents to sterilise the water. Very little if any chlorine gets into the air, but the chlorine in the water reacts with nitrogen from sweat, urine and skin scales to form chloramines (products of nitrogen and chlorine). Nitrogen trichloride is the most volatile, and is responsible for the common smell of the air in indoor swimming pools. The air in most swimming pools is recirculated to preserve heat rather than to remove the chloramines. Some pools use much less chlorine in the water than others, and some have much better air handling than others.
Nitrogen trichloride should be measured in the pool air after a period of use. A method is given below.
It is possible to measure nitrogen trichloride using a tube containing silica gel coated with sulphamic acid to trap hypochlorite and mono- and dichloramine along with a cassette containing a quartz filter treated with sodium carbonate and diarsenic trioxide to trap nitrogen trichloride.
The method is proposed in the reference below. The sampling and recovery efficiency of the filters used has been reported to be >95%.
Swimming is generally the best form of exercise for asthmatics, as exercise induced asthma is mostly due to breathing in cold dry air. The air in swimming pools is moist and warm, and breathing control is obviously necessary while swimming. A few asthmatics become allergic to the nitrogen trichloride in the pool air. Finding out whether this is the cause is a bit difficult. You should measure lung function, such as with a peak flow meter, hourly before swimming, then at the end of a swimming session, say every 15 minutes for the next hour and then hourly for the rest of the day. This should be compared with days not swimming. If the swimming day is worse than the non-swimming day, the swimming needs repeating in a different pool, particularly an outdoor pool where the air quality will not be a problem.
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