Rethinking Indoor Air Quality: The Human Body's Involvement in "Air Purification"?

People typically spend 90% of their time indoors, at home, at work, or on transportation

But how did these chemicals disappear again? In the outdoor atmosphere, this is to some extent natural, when it rains, through chemical oxidation

OH free radicals are formed by ozone and skin oils

However, it is now found that high concentrations of OH radicals are produced indoors simply due to the presence of humans and ozone

Nora Zannoni, the study's first author, said: "We humans are not only a source of active chemicals, but we are also able to transform these chemicals ourselves, and this discovery is very surprising

The oxidation field is produced by the reaction of ozone to the oils on our skin, especially the unsaturated triterpene squalene, which makes up about 10% of the skin lipids, protecting our skin and keeping it supple

The experiments were conducted at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in

To understand what the human-generated hydroxyl field looks like in space-time during the experiment, the results of a detailed heterogeneous chemical kinetics model from the University of California, Irvine were combined

Professor Manabu Shiraiwa of the University of California, Irvine, who led the modeling part of the new work, said: "Our modeling team is the first and currently the only one that can integrate chemical processes between skin and indoor air, from the molecular scale to the room scale

Test methods adapted to furniture and building materials

"We need to rethink the indoor chemistry that's taking up space because the oxidation fields we create will change many of the chemicals

The new findings also have implications for our health: Currently, chemical emissions from many materials and furniture are being tested

The Human Oxidation Field