Location-specific concentration profiles and partitioning of aromatic amines in indoor air and dust
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2026 |
| Type | Peer-reviewed scientific article |
| Magazine / Source | Atmospheric Environment |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231026003821 |
| Doi | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122152 |
| Keywords | Aromatic amines; Nicotine; Gas-particle partitioning; Dust-air partitioning; Chemical partitioning; Indoor surface reservoirs |
| Attached files | |
| Description | Aromatic amines (AAs) are organic compounds used in consumer products and generated by everyday indoor activities, yet their indoor fate remains poorly understood. We measured 44 aromatic amines (AAs) in air and dust across six indoor environments with different activity profiles: a smoking home, restaurant kitchen, hairdresser, smoking pub, shopping mall entry adjacent to a parking lot (dust sampling only), and a non-smoking home. Nicotine and tributylamine were additionally included as source-indicative marker compounds to support the interpretation of smoking and tire rubber-related influences. AAs were widely detected, with concentrations strongly influenced by smoking, cooking, and vehicle-related sources. Smoking environments showed the highest overall levels, while parking-lot-adjacent spaces were enriched in tire-derived amines such as 6PPD. Octanol-air partitioning (KOA)-based equilibrium models described the general indoor partitioning trends of AAs but showed poor quantitative agreement with measured gas-particle and dust-air distributions, particularly in combustion-impacted environments. The largest differences were found for basic and polar amines, suggesting that indoor partitioning is strongly affected by surface adsorption interactions and non-equilibrium processes that are not captured by KOA-based models. Partitioning space analysis indicates that most AAs are not gas-phase dominated indoors but are strongly influenced by surface reservoirs, and suggests that surface film and dust measurements should be given greater attention in indoor characterizations of AAs and related compounds. |
| Related projects: |