Issue 3, 2023

Indoor particulate matter (PM) from cooking in UK students' studio flats and associated intervention strategies: evaluation of cooking methods, PM concentrations and personal exposures using low-cost sensors

Abstract

Cooking emissions have been identified as a major source of indoor particulate matter (PM), which can contribute to severe health issues, including cardiovascular disease and lung cancer. Both cooking methods and use of extractors were investigated to assess their influence on PM concentrations and emission rates. The impact of PM residence times was also examined in terms of the operator's exposure. PM10 and PM2.5 were monitored by placing carefully validated low-cost sensors, with sufficiently high accuracies of 70.7% and 64.3% on PM10 and PM2.5, respectively, by compared to a reference instrument, in the kitchen areas of five student studio flats. Ranges and medians of mean concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 of four studied cooking methods ranked (range (median) (μg m−3)) deep-frying (62–236 (151); 6–37 (30)), stir-frying (17–176 (63); 2–38 (7)), boiling (6–41 (17); 2–11 (4)) and steaming (7–23 (12); 2–7 (3)), respectively. The impact of using extractors on PM removal rates ranged between 10.5% and 63.0%. Extractors were shown to accelerate the post-cooking pollutant decay, which therefore resulted in shorter residence times. Personal exposure times also varied with cooking method and operator gender. Indoor PM exposure is associated with PM concentration, cooking duration and decay rate. Based on these results, cooking water-based dishes while operating extractors would improve indoor air quality and reduce PM exposure.

Graphical abstract: Indoor particulate matter (PM) from cooking in UK students' studio flats and associated intervention strategies: evaluation of cooking methods, PM concentrations and personal exposures using low-cost sensors

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 Dec. 2022
Accepted
14 Febr. 2023
First published
20 Febr. 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023,3, 537-551

Indoor particulate matter (PM) from cooking in UK students' studio flats and associated intervention strategies: evaluation of cooking methods, PM concentrations and personal exposures using low-cost sensors

R. Tang and C. Pfrang, Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023, 3, 537 DOI: 10.1039/D2EA00171C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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