Abstract

leaning products contain numerous individual chemicals, which can be liberated on use. These species can react in air to form new chemical species, some of which are harmful to health. This paper uses a detailed chemical model for indoor air chemistry, to understand the chemical reactions that can occur following cleaning, assuming cleaning products with different proportions of limonene, a-pinene, and ß-pinene are used. The tests included the pure compounds, 50:50 mixtures and mixtures in proportion to the rates of reaction with ozone and the hydroxyl radical. For the 3 h following cleaning, pure a-pinene was most efficient at producing particles, pure limonene for nitrated organic material, and a 50:50 mixture of ß-pinene and limonene for formaldehyde, leading to enhancements of 1.1 µg/m3, 400 ppt, and 1.8 ppb, respectively, compared to no cleaning. Cleaning in the afternoon enhanced concentrations of secondary pollutants for all the mixtures, owing to higher outdoor and hence indoor ozone compared to the morning. These enhancements in concentrations lasted several hours, despite the cleaning emissions only lasting for 10 min. Doubling the air exchange rate enhanced concentrations of formaldehyde and particulate matter by ~15% while reducing that of nitrated organic material by 13%. Changing product formulations has the potential to change the resulting indoor air quality and consequently, impacts on health.

Changing the formulation of terpene-based cleaning products leads to changes in the resulting secondary pollutant composition that is observed. Some of the secondary pollutants that are formed following the use of such products can be harmful to human health, such as particulate matter and formaldehyde. The results from this study suggest that it is possible to vary the proportion of terpenes within cleaning and other consumer products to produce lower concentrations of potentially harmful pollutants indoors.

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Comments

A must read for clinicians seeing patients with asthma related to cleaning products, and ways of increasing or decreasing exposures in indoor air. Concentrates on terpenes , limonene and pinene

5/31/2022