Abstract for presentation at 14th IUAPPA World Congress

The objective of this research was to measure hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) in indoor microenvironments of residence houses in the urban area of southern Taiwan. The indoor air quality was measured from 26 family houses located in different urban area of Kaoshiung metropolitan. The monitored indoor microenvironments included living rooms, kitchen, sleeping, studying and recreation rooms. Several potential indoor HAPs including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, MtBE and aldehydes were measured. To analyze the contribution to indoor air quality by outdoor pollution sources, the outdoor air samples was also taken simultaneously. In general, it is observed higher pollutant concentrations indoors than outdoors. The I/O ratiosfor HAPs of benene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene were equal to 0.98, 1.26, 1.29, and 1.05, respectively. Both benzene and xylene might come from outsides, but toluene and ethylbenzene were mainly contributed by indoor sources. Both furniture and indoor burning activities were their major emission sources. In addition, although vehicles were its major pollution source, it was interesting to find MTBE with higher concentration indoors than that outdoors. The I/O ratio of MtBE was about 1.21 in average and was about 1.0 only for the housing with well ventilation, probably indicating either the accumulation of MtBE indoors or fast decomposition of MtBE outdoors. In comparison of HAPs in different locations indoors, living rooms and kitchen usually had higher pollutant concentrations than other indoor locations. Although the outdoor ambient air quality affected the background concentrations of air pollutants, indoor activities and pollution sources generally had more dominant contributions.