Engineering Proceedings (Dec 2023)
Influence of Interior Decorations on Indoor Air Quality in Fitness Centers
Abstract
In order to understand the air quality of fitness centers according to the Environmental Protection Administration’s “Indoor Air Quality Standards”, as well as to discuss how fitness center air-conditioning ventilation systems can effectively remove indoor air pollutants, this study focused on six Taichung fitness centers in a seven-sample air quality investigation, employing handheld precision instruments in space air testing and using linear regression analyses of the concentrations of indoor chemical pollutants, including factors such as temperature, relative humidity, CO2, O3, CO, CH2O, TVOC, PM2.5, and PM10. The results of this research are as follows: (1) Quantity of indoor decorations: The decorative materials used in each of the sample spaces and their sources are not the same. Even with the same quantity of decorations, the concentrations of CH2O and total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) that escaped into the atmosphere were different across the samples, leading to a low correlation (R = 0.0316, R = −0.0976). Our findings on the influence of the fitness center’s establishment date on the concentrations of formaldehyde (CH2O) and total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) that escaped into the indoor air indicate that this correlation is low and insignificant (R = −0.3598, R = −0.5523), but show that the indoor concentration of formaldehyde decreases with time. (2) Occupants’ indoor activities: The CO2 concentration generated by the static and dynamic activities of indoor occupants is not reflected in real time but will gradually accumulate, resulting in a moderate to low and insignificant correlation between the number of active occupants and the level of CO2 (R = 0.4343). (3) The PM2.5 and PM10 sources of suspended particles are not only related to the external air and interior decoration materials, but also to coarse surfaces, which can easily attract dust accumulation. Therefore, materials made from fabric and artificial turf should be reduced in order to reduce dust accumulating on the materials’ surfaces.
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