In developed and developing countries, indoor air pollution is gaining increasing prominence as a public health problem. Time-activity studies and exposure surveys have shown the dominant contributions of indoor environments to population exposures for many pollutants. Mounting epidemiological evidence documents adverse health effects of indoor pollutants and risk assessments indicate that indoor carcinogens may contribute substantially to the population's burden of lung and other cancers. Unacceptable indoor air quality has also been identified as a common cause of symptoms.
Adsorption, desorption and chemisorption are known to impact the dispersal of volatile organic and chemically reactive compounds in buildings. These same three processes may be used to advantage to control the levels of these compounds indoors using building sorption filtration devices.
Since the cost of energy is increasing sharply a trend to conserve energy in the indoor environment and in addition to improvements in thermal insulation, two possible solutions are adopted. The first one is to provide reduced air gaps and opening for newly constructed buildings to minimise the infiltration of outdoor air. The second one is to reduce the ventilation rate or the fresh air supplied in air conditioned buildings. These two solutions are the reason for some serious problems of indoor air quality.
Ventilation air distribution problems involving system design, installation, operation and maintenance are often suspected of causing air quality problems that plague many modern sealed office buildings, such air quality problems have resulted in occupants suffering symptoms of discomfort and ill health. Three case studies are described in which tests of ventilation performance appear to relate poor air quality to air distribution and ventilation. In all cases, ventilation system retrofits were designed to improve indoor environmental conditions.
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