Continuous aldehydes monitoring in primary schools in France: Evaluation of emission sources and ventilation practices over 5 weeks

This paper presents a field campaign conducted in two French elementary schools for 5 weeks aiming at identifying effects of occupation and ventilation practices on indoor aldehyde concentrations discriminating emission from building materials furniture. The investigated classrooms were first empty not occupied whereas the furniture was added following week. Normal school activities restarted last three under various practices. C2–C7 aldehydes monitored with conventional method based DNPH derivatization using active sampling followed by off-line HPLC/UV analysis. Acetaldehyde (AA) hexanal (HA) main present if formaldehyde is considered. weekly mean values acetaldehyde found range 9.5–13.1 μg m−3 (School 1), 9.4–17.6 2) equal to 5.3 3). In Schools 2 3, ranged between 3.3 5.4 but increased up 40.1 1 where painting work performed during week 2. Smaller amount propionaldehyde (PA) benzaldehyde (BA) always detected, their average being 0.4–4.0 0.9–2.7 PA BA, respectively. results supported Student's tests show that contribute emissions while significantly improves air quality without able privilege one scenarios tested.