title: Charged particles and cluster ions produced during cooking activities.
abstract: Previous studies showed that a significant number of the particles present in indoor air are generated by cooking activities, and measured particle concentrations and exposures have been used to estimate the related human dose. The dose evaluation can be affected by the particle charge level which is usually not considered in particle deposition models. To this purpose, in this paper we show, for the very first time, the electric charge of particles generated during cooking activities and thus extending the interest on particle charging characterization to indoor micro-environments, so far essentially focused on outdoors. Particle number, together with positive and negative cluster ion concentrations, was monitored using a condensation particle counter and two air ion counters, respectively, during different cooking events. Positively-charged particle distribution fractions during gas combustion, bacon grilling, and eggplant grilling events were measured by two Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer spectrometers, used with and without a neutralizer. Finally, a Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer was used to measure the charge specific particle distributions of bacon and eggplant grilling experiments, selecting particles of 30, 50, 80 and 100 nm in mobility diameter. The total fraction of positively-charged particles was 4.0%, 7.9%, and 5.6% for gas combustion, bacon grilling, and eggplant grilling events, respectively, then lower than other typical outdoor combustion-generated particles.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino, FR, Italy. Electronic address: l.stabile@unicas.it.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Stabile
authors.affiliation: International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: E R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Jayaratne
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino, FR, Italy; International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Buonanno
authors.affiliation: International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Morawska
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000032:analysis*; D003296:Cooking; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D007477:Ions / Q000032:analysis*; D010316:Particle Size
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D007477:Ions
keywords: Cooking-generated aerosol; Gas combustion; Ion concentration; Particle charge; TDMA; Ultrafine particles