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. 2019 Nov;29(6):926-942.
doi: 10.1111/ina.12597. Epub 2019 Sep 17.

Quantification of the impact of cooking processes on indoor concentrations of volatile organic species and primary and secondary organic aerosols

Felix Klein  1 , Urs Baltensperger  1 , André S H Prévôt  1 , Imad El Haddad  1
Affiliations

Quantification of the impact of cooking processes on indoor concentrations of volatile organic species and primary and secondary organic aerosols

Felix Klein et al. Indoor Air. 2019 Nov.

Abstract

Cooking is recognized as an important source of particulate pollution in indoor and outdoor environments. We conducted more than 100 individual experiments to characterize the particulate and non-methane organic gas emissions from various cooking processes, their reaction rates, and their secondary organic aerosol yields. We used this emission data to develop a box model, for simulating the cooking emission concentrations in a typical European home and the indoor gas-phase reactions leading to secondary organic aerosol production. Our results suggest that about half of the indoor primary organic aerosol emission rates can be explained by cooking. Emission rates of larger and unsaturated aldehydes likely are dominated by cooking while the emission rates of terpenes are negligible. We found that cooking dominates the particulate and gas-phase air pollution in non-smoking European households exceeding 1000 μg m-3 . While frying processes are the main driver of aldehyde emissions, terpenes are mostly emitted due to the use of condiments. The secondary aerosol production is negligible with around 2 μg m-3 . Our results further show that ambient cooking organic aerosol concentrations can only be explained by super-polluters like restaurants. The model offers a comprehensive framework for identifying the main parameters controlling indoor gas- and particle-phase concentrations.

Keywords: POA; SOA; Cooking emissions; HR-TOF-AMS; Indoor air quality; PTR-TOF-MS.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Model schematic
Figure 2
Figure 2
Production rates of POA and organic gases from cooking and other indoor sources. Mean values as well as 5th and 95th percentiles (whiskers) and 25th and 75th percentiles (box) are shown for modeled total indoor source emission rates from Waring (2014) 34 (A) and for modeled cooking emission rates from this study (B) as well as the contributions of the different cooking processes to the total emissions (C) of POA, acrolein (Acr), formaldehyde (F), saturated carbonyls with less than 6 carbons (C1tot) or excluding formaldehyde (C1), saturated aldehydes with more than 5 carbons (C2), unsaturated carbonyls with more than 5 carbons (C3), and terpenes (Terp). Red stars in B are median values from A
Figure 3
Figure 3
Contribution of air exchange, adsorption on surfaces, and gas‐phase oxidation to the loss of C2, C3, and terpene compounds during the first 12 hours after being emitted. CDF is the cumulative distribution function which gives the probability that the contribution of a loss mechanism is less or equal than a certain contribution
Figure 4
Figure 4
Time‐dependent probability density functions of indoor pollutant concentrations in European homes originating from Occidental style cooking processes. The left‐hand panels show the evolution of the gaseous pollutants, acrolein (A), saturated carbonyls with less than six carbons (B), saturated carbonyls with more than 5 carbons (C), unsaturated carbonyls with more than 5 carbons (D), and terpenes (E). The right‐hand panels show the evolution of the particulate species, POA (F), SOA formed from carbonyl oxidation (G), SOA formed from terpene oxidation (H), and total SOA formed (J)
Figure 5
Figure 5
Probability density functions of 12‐h average and maximum indoor pollutant concentrations in European homes originating from frying processes, the use of seasoning, and the total of all cooking processes. The frying is color coded by the average cooking temperature if relevant for the compound emissions. The left‐hand panels show the 12‐h averages, and the right‐hand panels show the maximum concentration of acrolein (Acr), saturated carbonyls with less than six carbons (C1), saturated carbonyls with more than five carbons (C2), unsaturated carbonyls with more than five carbons (C3), terpenes (Terp), primary organic aerosol (POA), SOA formed from carbonyl oxidation (CSOA), SOA formed from terpene oxidation (TerpSOA), and total SOA formed (TotSOA)
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