Aldehydes measurements in Indoor and Outdoor environments in Mexico City.

The importance of assessing indoor air quality is because people spend more than 70% of their daily life in indoor environments either inside office, school, college, industrial buildings or inside residential houses, being substantially influenced by outdoor air pollutants. Aldehydes are identified with natural and anthropogenic sources. The compounds can further be produced via primary and secondary source formation such as incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, industrial emission, vehicular exhaust, and photochemical oxidation of atmospheric hydrocarbons. The concentrations of four aldehydes studied (formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, propionaldehyde and butyraldehyde) are presented. These compounds have effect on the health of people polluted atmospheres, between these compounds formaldehyde and acetaldehyde play an important role due to their reactivity and toxicity studied. The results suggest that concentrations in indoors are higher than in outdoors; the aldehyde that showed the highest concentrations outdoors was formaldehyde in a period of time from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The Indoor/Outdoor (I/O) ratios of the measured aldehydes were> 1. The average exposure concentrations calculated for formaldehyde and total aldehydes are expressed Exposure Doses calculated in indoors and outdoors for two schools and one research center. The results for each sampling location are analyzed according to their characteristics: ventilation, construction materials, internal sources and occupant activities.