wp1: Laboratory Experiments
Controlled laboratory experiments to quantify indoor emission rates from key activities in the home
Ingenious experiments investigate sources of air pollution indoors. This pollution can be caused by buildings themselves, by furnishings, and by occupant activities such as cooking, cleaning and consumer product use. We have a wide variety of sensitive instrumentation to measure both gases and particles, to identify the strongest emitting activities, and also to focus in on the most harmful pollutants. Experiments take place both in our controlled laboratory settings and also in more realistic kitchen / bathroom facilities.
WP1 lead
Terry is the lead for the lab-based experiments in WP1, investigating emissions from materials and activities indoors.
Ally works on better understanding the distribution and sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found inside homes. His lab collects air from each home, which is then returned to York for detailed chemical analysis. When this data is combined with information on ventilation, occupancy, building type and other activities going on inside the house, it can resolve which sources make the biggest impacts.
Pete’s interests include the role of chlorine as an atmospheric oxidant, and his group make measurements of key chlorine containing compounds in order to quantify its impact. Many cleaning products can result in the release of chlorinated compounds to indoor atmospheres, and Pete will investigate this as part of the WP1 experiments. Pete also has an interest in low-cost air pollution sensor technologies, and will contribute to the WP2 sensor deployment.
Jacqui leads WP2b that is focused on making measurements of the air quality within 300 homes in Bradford. She is responsible for understanding the chemical composition of different types of particle sources and to help identify which sources lead to poor indoor air quality. She also supports WP 1.
Gordon works on measuring particulate composition and properties, on modelling particulate formation and transformation and on understanding the impacts of various sorts of pollution on human health. His team helps characterise the particle composition in the homes sampled in WP2 and understand the transformation of indoor particulate pollution using models in WP4. He also leads a Clean Air consortium characterising the relative toxicity of different pollution sources, providing a "hazard ranking" and leads WP5 in Ingenious aiming to quantify health impacts of indoor air pollution.
Ashish works on the lab-based experiments for characterising and quantifying the emission rates of gaseous and particulate emissions from various indoor air activities like cooking and cleaning. Additionally he is also part of the WP2b team that is focused on in-situ measurement of air quality in 300 homes in Bradford.
In WP1, the various components of complex gas mixtures are separated by gas-chromatography (GC) and identified by time-of-flight mass-spectrometry (TOF-MS).