Indoor air quality assessment in office buildings

Summary

The assessment of indoor air quality in an office building is given. The analysis of the results of reviewing Russian and foreign authors on this topic showed that at CO₂ concentration of 600–800 ppm and higher the well-being of people worsens, which leads to impaired productivity and increased fatigue. Prolonged exposure to carbon dioxide in humans can lead to chronic diseases. The results of an experimental study of the change in carbon dioxide concentration in an office of a public building with an area of 30 m² with continuing presence of five people are presented. The CO₂ concentration was measured using MT 8057 portable carbon dioxide detector during 24 hours. According to the measurement results a graph of CO2 concentration is plotted against the time. It was concluded that the air quality was not satisfactory during certain periods of the working day (from 10:40 to 13:30 and from 14:45 to 19:00 the CO₂ concentration exceeded 1000 ppm) which indicates problems with the ventilation system and excessive sealing of the room (because of plastic windows). The necessity of taking measures to improve the efficiency of inflow exhaust ventilation has been substantiated.

Key words

carbon dioxide , ventilation , personalized air terminal device , air quality , air exchange , public buildings , sick building syndrome,