Impacts of PM on Indoor Air Quality of Airport Terminal Buildings in a Core City of North China Plain

Yunting Zhao; Wenhui Zheng; Simeng Ma; Weikai Kong; Bo Han; Jian Yu

doi:10.4209/aaqr.220357

Impacts of PM on Indoor Air Quality of Airport Terminal Buildings in a Core City of North China Plain

Yunting Zhao ^1,2, Wenhui Zheng^1,2, Simeng Ma This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.¹, Weikai Kong³, Bo Han This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.¹, Jian Yu¹

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¹Research Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development of Civil Aviation of China, School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin, China
²College of Air Traffic Management, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin, China
³Air Safety Support Department, Shandong Airlines, Jinan, China

Received: October 21, 2022
Revised: March 9, 2023
Accepted: March 17, 2023

Copyright The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are cited.

Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.220357

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Cite this article:

Zhao, Y., Zheng, W., Ma, S., Kong, W., Han, B., Yu, J. (2023). Impacts of PM on Indoor Air Quality of Airport Terminal Buildings in a Core City of North China Plain. Aerosol Air Qual. Res. https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.220357

HIGHLIGHTS

Airport’s indoor and outdoor PM with particle sizes from 0.25 to 32 µm were analyzed.
The PM concentrations in winter were notably higher than those in summer.
Significant differences in indoor and outdoor PM with particles sizes less than 1 µm existed.
More than half of outdoor PM with particle size less than 2.5 µm could move to indoor air.
Respiratory deposition doses were further used to examine passengers’ exposure.

ABSTRACT

With the economic growth and globalization, a great deal of airports are being or planned to be constructed or retrofitted in China. The air quality in airport terminal buildings has not been studied as in-depth as airport ambient air quality. Due to its unique architectural and operational characteristics, the airport terminal buildings have individual performance of indoor air quality. The contribution of outdoor particulate matter (PM) to indoor environment and passengers’ exposure to indoor PM is not well understood. The indoor (i.e., terminal buildings) and outdoor PM concentrations with particle sizes from 0.25 to 32 μm of Tianjin Binhai International Airport (IATA: TSN) were monitored continuously during two cases in winter and summer 2020. Higher indoor PM concentrations occurred in winter as well as in the arrival halls of TSN. During winter case, the indoor sources contributed more to the indoor environment than the outdoor sources, whereas the opposite was found during summer case. Sharp variation of indoor PM number concentrations existed in particles within the range of 0.25–0.40 μm in size, with a peak number concentration at particle size of about 0.30 μm. PM with smaller particle sizes were more likely to enter the indoor environment from outdoor. The comprehensive exposure in the TSN terminal buildings was higher than those in the transportation microenvironments, residences and other buildings. Significant diurnal variations of Respiratory deposition dose (RDD) were observed under various exposure durations. Our results highlight the need for further monitoring and improving the air quality in the terminal buildings.

Keywords: Airport, Terminal building, Particulate matter, I/O ratio, Respiratory deposition dose