Partition of the carbonyl compounds between the indoor and outdoor air at residental areas in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

Indoor air pollution, especially for the air toxic compounds such as carbonyls, is the most common issue in large cities. Indoor and outdoor air samples were simultaneously collected at six homes to estimate the pollution levels of carbonyl compounds at some points in the residential area, Ho Chi Minh City. The gaseous carbonyls were measured in the period of August and September, 2011 corresponding to the rainy season. The results showed that formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acetone were the most abundant carbonyls in both indoor and outdoor air, accounted 80 % of the interested compounds, followed by propionaldehyde and benzaldehyde. In the outdoor air, the mean concentrations of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acetone were 15.21±6.42, 13.77±7.63, 12.11±11.72 μg.m^-3, respectively. Meanwhile, the indoor concentrations were 25.45±19.49, 26.21±13.03 and 22.12±18.08 μg.m^-3 for formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acetone, respectively. Formaldehyde/acetaldehyde and acetaldehyde/ propionaldehyde ratios were 2.23±1.41 and 6.09±5.00, respestively, indicating that main sources of outdoor carbonyls came from the anthropogenic source. The mean carbonyl concentrations of the present study compared with those of other countries showed that indoor carbonyls were similar to other studies, but outdoor carbonyls were much higher. In addition, most of the indoor/outdoor ratios were slightly higher than 1 and levels of benzaldehyde and tolualdehyde were a little high in the indoor air.  These results indicated that the indoor carbonyls were strongly affected by the outdoor air infiltration.