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Particulate matter emissions from activities of building refurbishment
Farhad Azarmi1 and Prashant Kumar1, 2 and Mike Mulheron1
1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences (FEPS),
University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom
2Environmental Flow (EnFlo) Research Centre, FEPS, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United
Kingdom
Keywords: Particulate matter, ultrafine particles, building refurbishment, SEM, XPS and IBA.
Presenting author email: f.azarmi@surrey.ac.uk
Over the past 35 years, an increase of 20% occurred in
refurbishment work in the total volume of UK
construction output (Egbu, 1999).
population is expected to grow to more than 60% by
2035 which are likely to be living in urban areas
(GroBmann et al., 2013). This growth has, however, not
been matched by comparable research on the
environmental impacts of refurbishment. There are still
limited numbers of studies about the impact of airborne
particulate matter spewed from refurbishment activities
on human health and environment.
As a consequence, it is essential to determine the
exposure levels of activities related to building
refurbishment such as demolition, concrete manufacture,
cutting, welding and sawing, and understand the size
distribution and propagation of particulate matter (PM)
into the surrounding environment.
As an extension to our prior work (Azarmi et al.,
2014; Kumar et al., 2012) and in light of the
aforementioned research gaps, the aim of current study
was to investigate the release and physicochemical
properties of PM, including ultrafine particles (UFP),
from over 20 different refurbishment activities occurred
at an operational building site.
0
3
6
9
12
15
18
Background Activity Non-activity
Background Activity Non-activity
PNC (# cm-3 )
10 4
56%
39%
5%
55%
40%
5%
5- 30 nm 30- 100 nm 100- 300 nm 300-560 nm
34%
66%
Figure 1. Average PNCs during the background, activity
and non-activity periods.
To achieve these objectives, experiments were carried
out during the refurbishment of a laboratory facility at
the University of Surrey that was 31 m long and 15.5 m
wide to measure the PM10, PM2.5, PM1 and UFP released
from refurbishment activities. Particles were measured in
the 510,000 nm size range using a fast response
differential mobility spectrometer (DMS50) and a
GRIMM particle spectrometer for a total of about 55
hours over the period of 8 days. The site had 0.32 m
deep and 1 m wide windows that were slightly open
most of the sampling duration. However, the ambient
wind speed during the sampling period was relatively
low (i.e. less than 1.5 m s1), giving almost stable
dilution conditions at the site during the study period.
Also scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray
photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and ion beam analysis
(IBA) were used to identify physicochemical
characteristics of particles and ascribe them to probable
sources considering the size and particles nature.
Figure 1 shows average particle number
concentrations (PNCs) on a daily basis including (i) the
a
day without any activity during
the working hours when different refurbishment
activities were taking plac-
-activity period
between different activities. The overall average PNCs
(49.14±32.80 ×103) during the activity periods were
significantly above the background level (1.17±0.80
×103). During the refurbishment activities, UFPs
accounted for over 90% of the total PNCs and less than
10% and total mass concentration. The highest UFP
concentrations were 4860, 740, 650 and 500 times above
the background value during wall chasing, drilling,
cementing and general demolition activities,
respectively. These high levels of UFP suggest that there
is a need to design appropriate risk mitigation strategies
to limit exposures of on-site workers. Also the analyses
of XPS, SEM and IBA showed the presence of the
elements such calcium (Ca), silicon (Si), copper (Cu),
potassium (K), sulphur (S), zinc (Zn) and aluminium
(Al) on the collected samples. These were presumably
released from the equipment and the building materials
(e.g. concrete, bricks and metals) involved in the
refurbishment activities.
The authors thank the University of the Surrey (UK) and
Cara for supporting this this research project.
Azarmi, F., Kumar, P., Mulheron, M. (2014) J. HazMat.
279, 268-279.
Egbu, C.O. (1999) Constr. Manage. Econ. 17, 29-43.
GroBmann, A., Hohmann, F., Wiebe, K. (2013)
Macroecon. Model. Pol. Eval. 120, 33.
Kumar, P., Mulheron, M., Som, C. (2012) J. Nanopart.
Res. 14, 1-14.