Indoor Air Quality Measurements in Enclosed Spaces Combining Activities with Different Intensity and Environmental Conditions

Abstract

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an increase in knowledge in certain fields such as human breathing and respiratory diseases. In the current study, enclosed-space characteristics were assessed due to the great debate generated because of the pandemic. Temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, particulate matter (PM) concentration and cumulative particle concentration percentage per size fraction were measured in three buildings under the occurrence of activities with different intensity levels. For the measurements, Arduino UNO, Sensiron SCD30 and APS-3321 devices were used. Natural ventilation was controlled via windows and/or doors, and the influence of air conditioning was studied in one of these rooms, in which medium- to high-intensity activities were conducted. All experiments revealed a decrease in temperature associated with an increase in the relative humidity when CO2 decreased. As a consequence, drastic decreases occurred a few minutes after windows and doors were opened. In no-ventilation intervals, the observed linear increase changed into an asymptotic trend below the 1000 ppm limit recommended by Sinphonie guidelines. Additionally, the opposite behavior was observed between particles above and below a certain size. This experiment is of interest to further investigate critical ventilation rate versus volume of air per individual.