title: Gaseous pollutants on rural and urban nursery schools in Northern Portugal.
abstract: Indoor air quality in nursery schools is different from other schools and this has been largely ignored, particularly in rural areas. Urban and rural nursery schools have different environmental characteristics whose knowledge needs improvement. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate continuously the concentrations of CO2, CO, NO2, O3, CH2O and total VOC in three rural nursery schools and one urban, being the only one comparing urban and rural nurseries with continuous measurements, thus considering occupation and non-occupation periods. Regarding CO2, urban nursery recorded higher concentrations (739-2328 mg m(-3)) than rural nurseries (653-1078 mg m(-3)). The influence of outdoor air was the main source of CO, NO2 and O3 indoor concentrations. CO and NO2 concentrations were higher in the urban nursery and O3 concentrations were higher in rural ones. CH2O and TVOC concentrations seemed to be related to internal sources, such as furniture and flooring finishing and cleaning products.
authors.affiliation: LEPABE - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: R A O
authors.initials: RAO
authors.lastname: Nunes
authors.affiliation: LEPABE - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: P T B S
authors.initials: PTBS
authors.lastname: Branco
authors.affiliation: LEPABE - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: M C M
authors.initials: MCM
authors.lastname: Alvim-Ferraz
authors.affiliation: LEPABE - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: F G
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Martins
authors.affiliation: LEPABE - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal. Electronic address: sofia.sousa@fe.up.pt.
authors.forename: S I V
authors.initials: SIV
authors.lastname: Sousa
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000032:analysis*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D011174:Portugal; D012424:Rural Population; D012578:Schools, Nursery
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants
keywords: Children; Gaseous; Indoor air; Nursery; Rural; Urban