Indoor Air Quality in the Control Tower of Athens International Airport, Greece

Abstract

In recent decades the air quality in Athens city has been extremely poor. Scientific interest has focused on health effects caused by indoor air pollution, due to the fact that most people in the developed world spend most of their time indoors, especially in office settings. Carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds and benzene are important pollutants that can affect indoor air quality. Measurements conducted inside the Control Tower of Athens International Airport have shown that despite the fact that concentrations never exceeded the established limits for indoor environments, all pollutant concentrations determined were significantly higher than those outdoors. This indicates contributions from indoor sources such as smoking, carpets, furniture and human emanations including breathing and body odour. Benzene levels found in the employees’ exposure experiments were particularly noticeable and proved that smoking was a major indoor pollution source.

Occupational scenarios and exposure assessment to formaldehyde: A systematic review

“…After the evaluation of the full‐text, 18 articles were excluded for the following reasons: 2 articles evaluated the occupational exposure to other chemicals, 2 did not assess occupational exposure, estimated the exposure to formaldehyde based on data reported in national/institutional databases, reported measured performed before the year 2004, 1 just reported data on biological monitoring, 1 was a proceeding. 6 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 18 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 In Figure 2 are reported the results of risk of bias assessment for all the 51 articles, considering the percentage of the responses to each question of the checklist.…”

An Assessment of Indoor Air Quality in the Arrivals Hall of Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport: Monitoring of VOCs and NO2

“…In addition to these sources, indoor air pollution can intensify if inadequate ventilation exists, and insufficient outdoor air is allowed to mix with the indoor air [13], or if improper filtration systems are utilized to reduce the contamination from outdoor air. Some studies have measured concentration levels inside airport buildings [14][15][16].…”

“…Tasakas et al [16] assessed the indoor air quality at the Control Tower of Athens International Airport by measuring carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and VOCs-more particularly, benzene. Contrary to the results found by Pleil et al [17], results highlighted that even though indoor concentrations never exceeded the established limits for indoor environments, all pollutant concentrations determined were substantially higher than those outdoors [16] due to emissions from indoor sources such as smoking, carpets, furniture and human emanations including breathing and body odour. In fact, smoking activity increased total VOCs (TVOCs) concentrations by 2.5 times compared to concentrations measured during a non-smoking period.…”

Indoor and Outdoor Concentrations of Particulate Matter in an Airport Terminal Building: A Pilot Study at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Indonesia

“…Typical air quality parameters include total volatile organic compounds (TVOC), ultrafine particles (UFP) (particle diameters are less than 0.1 µm), fine particles (FP) or PM 2.5 (particle diameters are less than 2.5 µm), and PM 10 (particle diameters are less than 10 µm). For example, the TVOC and other gas pollutants were evaluated inside the control tower by Helmis et al [2], Mokalled et al [3], and Tsakas and Siskos [4]. Helmis et al [2] also measured the indoor PM 2.5 and PM 10 mass concentration in the control tower [2].…”