Research summary
Canadians spend about 90 per cent of their lives indoors, and the quality of indoor air can be very different from that of the air outdoors. Yet we lack a good understanding of the chemistry that affects air quality in houses and other indoor environments. As Canada Research Chair in Environmental Analytical Chemistry, Dr. Tara Kahan aims to better understand how human activities affect indoor air quality.
She and her research team are using portable gas and particle sensors in occupied buildings to obtain real-time information about the effects of activities like cooking and cleaning on air quality. They aim to characterize the exposure risks to people from interactions between pollutants like cigarette smoke and mould and the chemicals used in cleaning activities. They will then communicate these results to stakeholders, such as home owners, building designers and governments. They also hope to develop a model to accurately predict the fate and impact of pollutants in snow-covered regions.