Abstract
Due to current high levels of pollutant concentrations in office buildings, this study investigated the effectiveness of removing pollutants using an upper supply and upper return central air conditioning system through field tests and experimental studies. Specifically, this study explored the relationship between indoor pollution and ventilation, investigated methods to improve indoor environments, assessed the feasibility of a pre-ventilation control scheme, and developed a time algorithm model for pre-ventilation control. We found that, when addressing smoking, the reduction in total volatile organic compound (TVOC) concentration was not significantly more noticeable than that of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and to effectively eliminate smoke, the central air conditioning system should be based on changes in TVOC concentration. Different areas within public buildings should adopt varying ventilation strategies, depending on their function and the amount of pollutant emission, especially for places with intermittent emissions. Our findings also demonstrated that pre-ventilation not only reduced pollutant concentrations but also consumed minor energy. By implementing the pre-ventilation control model, indoor pollutants can be reduced prior to office building operation, resulting in a reasonable indoor environment that meets human health requirements.
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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We express our acknowledgement to all members that have participated in this research project. The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their very useful comments. We thank Joint International Research Laboratory of Green Buildings and Built Environments at Chongqing University for providing technical support. We thank Nuoa Lei from Northwestern University for providing English grammar and logical assistance.
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This work was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province (2022NSFSC1027) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2023SCU12095).
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ZC and GL did the experiment and analyzed the data. ZC was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. JX provided technical support and theoretic instruction. Zhao Yang helped to complete the experiment.
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Cheng, Z., Yang, Z., Xiong, J. et al. Investigation on the pollutant concentration and optimal control strategy of pre-ventilation in office buildings. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 21, 3845–3858 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05235-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05235-7