Numerical Investigation on the Effect of Ventilation on the Distribution of Phthalate Esters in the Residential Environment

Abstract

Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), such as phthalates and brominated flame retardants, is a kind of emerged pollutants due to wide application in indoor environment. Certain indoor SVOCs have been found to be associated with various adverse health effects, attracting large attentions of researchers. Due to relatively low vapor pressure, SVOCs are easily adsorbed on various surfaces including particles. Therefore, airborne SVOCs are always simultaneously presented in the gas-phase and particle-phase. Ventilation is an important means to improve indoor air quality. Different forms of indoor air distribution will affect the distribution of indoor pollutants and further affect the exposure to the human body. Therefore, in this paper, we selected Di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) as the target compound and employed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique to simulate the emission of DEHP and the concentration distribution with different phases in a modeled room. Euler-Lagarian model is applied to simulate flow field, particle tracks and UDF (user defined function) was implemented to describe the dynamic adsorption of DEHP by the suspended particles. Furthermore, the effect of location of vent and airflow rate on indoor fate of DEHP were discussed and the effect of particle age on indoor fate of DEHP was also investigated.