Occupational and environmental impacts of indoor air pollutant for different occupancy: a review

• Published in: Toxicology and environmental health sciences 2021-12, Vol.13 (4), p.303-322
• Main Authors: Nandan, Abhishek, Siddiqui, N. A., Singh, Chandrakant, Aeri, Ashish
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air pollution; Air quality; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Building codes; Buildings; Carbon; Contaminants; Developing countries; Environmental Health; Environmental impact; Health risks; Heavy metals; Indoor air pollution; Indoor air quality; Indoor environments; LDCs; Mini Review; Occupancy; Organic carbon; Ozone; Parameters; Particulate matter; Particulates; Pharmacology/Toxicology; Pollutants; Pollution control; Sulfur; Suspended particulate matter; VOCs; Volatile organic compounds
• ISSN: 2005-9752; 2233-7784
• DOI: 10.1007/s13530-021-00102-9

Introduction Since an average human spends most of the time indoors (ranging from 85% to 90%), the understanding about ambient environment is very important. The indoor environment is majorly polluted from the indoor air pollutants like volatile organic carbon (VOC), semi-volatile organic carbon (SVOC), particulate matter, ozone, oxides of carbon and sulphur, heavy metals, biological contaminants and many more. There has been growing awareness about the adverse health effects of poor indoor air quality (IAQ) in the last two decades; researchers across the globe are performing various studies to assess the IAQ, and the situation in developing and the under-developing country is getting worse day by day due to unplanned and rapid growth. Methodology This work is an attempt to catalogue different types of indoor air pollutants in various buildings based on their occupancy; finally, their health effects have also been touched upon. National Building Code of India (Part IV—2005) has been taken under consideration for different types of buildings. Results and discussion It has been observed that a number of pollutants are present in the indoor environment; hence, the determination of all the IAQ parameters consumes a lot of time and resources; a set of five to six parameters, i.e., TVOC, oxides of sulphur, carbon and nitrogen, ozone, and respirable suspended particulates, are the most effective indicators for the assessment of indoor air quality. The pollutants in indoor air are classified into three major categories, and the potential sources, health effects of these pollutants and mitigation measures to improve IAQ are listed further in the paper.