Toward Linking Indoor Commercial Source Emissions to Outdoor Volatile Organic Compounds Using Mobile Measurements.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Atmospheric Chemistry
• Air Quality Monitoring

Background:

• Assessing indoor volatile organic compound (VOC) impacts on outdoor air quality is difficult due to emission variability and atmospheric dispersion.
• Mobile monitoring offers enhanced spatial and temporal resolution for localized emission source analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a new method for characterizing indoor emission impacts on outdoor air quality using mobile measurements.
• To link specific commercial indoor activities to their outdoor air quality signatures.

Main Methods:

• Utilized geographic information to identify hundreds of indoor emission sources (e.g., restaurants, salons).
• Modeled hourly source contributions using a Gaussian plume model with wind data.
• Applied K-means clustering to group source factors and analyzed VOC/NOx relationships with generalized additive models (GAMs).

Main Results:

• Developed 'source factors' representing the influence of each source type at specific locations and times.
• Established robust associations between key VOC tracer compounds and specific source factors (e.g., acetone with beauty salons, isoprene/furan with restaurants).
• Demonstrated the capability to identify outdoor signatures of commercial indoor activities.

Conclusions:

• The developed mobile monitoring approach provides a new perspective for air quality assessment.
• Integrating source location data with mobile measurements offers a robust framework for identifying indoor emission impacts.
• This method enhances our ability to monitor and manage air quality influenced by commercial activities.