Chamber Studies for Indoor Air Quality Modeling and Monitoring

Evaluating the status of indoor air quality using scientific techniques has become a necessity at both urban and rural habitats. The process generally involves monitoring of pollutants, investigation of its dispersion characteristics, formation and destruction of pollutants, and rate of addition and removal from the sources and sinks, respectively. In order to assess the above, the usage of sophisticated instruments or low-cost sensors has become a prerequisite. However, their unavailability and affordability have a significant effect on the indoor air quality studies at various scales. To an extent, these studies can be performed using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models which can simulate the pollutant dispersion characteristics based on predefined numerical solvers. Moreover, information about the fate and transport of the pollutant in the real time at the full-scale level remains unexplained. Chamber studies enable us to supplement the monitoring studies conducted at full-scale levels along with themonitoring studies and CFD simulations. The current paper discusses the various types of indoor air quality chambers and their applications in the investigation of different air quality parameters. The paper also presents the case studies in development of ECO-SEE wall panels and the ability of the construction materials to absorb pollutants.