Strategies for reducing indoor concentrations of Nitrogen Dioxide in buildings

在英国每年与空气污染有关的4万例死亡中，有23,500例与NO2有关，到2035年，NHS的成本估计相当于2.3亿英镑。过滤某些污染物（例如颗粒）已被证明是有效的，并在建筑行业中被广泛采用。然而，降低室内NO2浓度的策略目前还没有得到很好的理解。现有的旨在去除室内污染物的通风策略实际上可能导致来自室外的更高的NO2渗透率，而传感器技术的最新发展意味着基于NO2的通风控制具有潜力。该研究旨在：- 评估过滤的影响，清除和NO2通风控制-确定通风系统能耗的变化-测量进一步的污染物以检查CO-变量和意外后果研究的初始阶段应包括详细的文献综述，以确定主题，并确定通风系统和室内空气质量知识的差距程度。目前，降低室内NO2浓度的策略尚未得到很好的理解，并且由于NO2水平的增加会增加或加剧呼吸系统问题，这是一个关注在建筑物中生活和工作的人的健康和福祉的领域。许多建筑物的使用者对这个话题越来越感兴趣，因此建筑物管理人员和系统操作人员都渴望进一步了解这一点。此外，空气污染的影响已被证明会加剧新型冠状病毒的脆弱性和风险，因此，随着我们从封锁中恢复过来，我认为我们应该采取更多措施来减轻风险。这项研究将增加对通风系统效率的理解，并支持缓解策略。我认为整体方法在本质上更具经验性。初步研究其对通风系统、能耗和室内空气品质的影响。对于室内空气质量，有许多不同的监测设备可用于确定污染物浓度。我建议对不同的监测器进行研究，以确定它们的适用性。价格低廉的备选办法（如“卫星遥感”）可能是测量的最佳选择，因为它们将提供良好的空间和时间结果，但这需要通过研究其精确度和准确度来确定。

Of 40,000 annual UK deaths associated with air pollution, 23,500 were associated with NO2 , with costs to the NHS estimated to equal £230m by 2035 . Filtration of some pollutants (e.g. particulates) has been shown to be effective and widely adopted within the building industry. However, strategies for reducing indoor NO2 concentrations are not currently well understood. Existing ventilation strategies aimed at removing indoor pollutants may in fact lead to higher penetration rates of NO2 from outdoors, whilst recent developments in sensor technologies mean there is potential for NO2 based ventilation control.The study aims to: - Assess impact of filtration, removal and NO2 ventilation control - Identify changes to energy consumption of ventilation systems- Measure further pollutants to examine co-variates and unintended consequences Initial stages of the research should include a detailed literature review to define the subject matter and determine the extent of the gaps in knowledge on ventilation systems and indoor air quality. At present strategies for reducing indoor NO2 concentrations are not well understood, and as increased levels of NO2 can increase or exacerbate respiratory problems, this is an area of concern for health and wellbeing of people living and working in buildings. Many building occupants are becoming more interested in this topic, and therefore building managers and system operatives are keen to understand this further. In addition, the impacts of air pollution have been shown to exacerbate Covid-19 vulnerability and risk , and therefore as we move into recovery from lockdown, I think we should do more to mitigate the risk. This piece of research will add to the understanding of ventilation system efficiency and support mitigation strategies.I envisage that the overall approach is more empirical in nature. Primary research will be carried out on the impact on the ventilation system, energy consumption and on indoor air quality. For indoor air quality there are a number of different monitoring devices which could be used to determine pollutant concentrations. I propose that research is carried out into different monitors to determine their suitability. It may be that inexpensive options (such as alphasense) could be an excellent choice for measurements, as they would afford good spatial and temporal results, however this would need to be determined through research into their precision and accuracy.