Comparison of Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality in Children Homes at Prenatal Period and One Year Old

Indoor air (VOCs) samples were collected simultaneously from variety of indoors (e.g. living rooms, baby’s rooms) and outdoor environments which were voluntarily selected from the houses in which pregnant residents live throughout Ankara. This is the first comprehensive study done in Turkey starting from prenatal period and continued till the babies had one year old. VOCs levels were measured over 76 homes. Air samples were collected in Tenax TA sorbent filled tubes with active sampling method and analyzed with Thermal Desorber and Gas Chromatography/Mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS). At the first sampling period in the baby’s rooms maximum concentration of toluene was measured about 240.77μg.m and in the living rooms maximum concentration of naphthalene was 180.24μg.m. At the second sampling period in the baby’s rooms maximum concentration of toluene was measured about 144.97μg.m and in the living rooms maximum concentration of naphthalene was 247.89μg.m. Concentration of TVOCs in the first period was generally higher than the second period. Keywords—Indoor Air, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), Gas Chromatography.