• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Human Skin Creates A Haze Of Chemical Emissions In Indoor Air

September 9, 2022 by Deborah Bloomfield

Human bodies are stalked by their own haze of chemical emissions that changes indoor air chemistry, as shown by a new study. While we might be totally unaware of this invisible companion, the researchers believe the “oxidation field” produced by our skin may have an impact on indoor air quality and even human health.

It’s all to do with oxidation, a process in which a chemical substance changes because of the addition of oxygen. Outdoors, certain chemicals are scrubbed from the air by rain and through chemical oxidation by hydroxyl (OH) radicals, which are created by ultraviolet sunlight interacting with ozone and water vapor.

Advertisement

Indoors, sunlight and rain aren’t as big of an issue, so it was previously assumed that indoor environments don’t have high levels of OH radicals. 

However, a new study reported in the journal Science has found this is not the case: high levels of OH radicals can be generated indoors and it’s generated by humans interacting with ozone gas in the air. 

“The discovery that we humans are not only a source of reactive chemicals, but we are also able to transform these chemicals ourselves was very surprising to us,” Nora Zannoni, first author of the study and at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate in Bologna, said in a statement. 

Four people sit in a climate controlled room while scientists monitor changes in air quality.

Human guinea pigs during the experiment in a climate controlled chamber. Image credit: Mikal Schlosser, TU Denmark

“The strength and shape of the oxidation field is determined by how much ozone is present, where it infiltrates, and how the ventilation of the indoor space is configured,” adds Zannoni. The levels the scientists found were even comparable to outside daytime OH concentrations levels.

More particularly, the oxidation field that surrounds us is generated by the reaction of ozone with oils and fats that our skin hydrated, like unsaturated triterpene squalene.

To discover this, an interdisciplinary team of engineers and chemists gathered four people in a climate-controlled chamber that was pumped with levels of ozone you’d find at higher indoor levels. The team worked out the room’s OH values before and during the time the people were inside, then created a fluid dynamics computer model to understand what was going on. 

Advertisement

“Our modeling team is the first and currently the only group that can integrate chemical processes between skin and indoor air, from molecular scales to room scales,” added Manabu Shiraiwa, a professor at UC Irvine who led the modeling part of the new work. “The model makes sense of the measurements – why OH is generated from the reaction with skin.”

Of course, the average human spends approximately 90 percent of their life inside, so this build up of radicals isn’t not going to be anything for most people to worry about. However, the researchers note that the oxidation processes can also pump out respiratory irritants such as 4-oxopentanal (4-OPA), which cause problems for children and people with weakened immune systems. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic taught us, indoor air quality is something that’s been largely ignored in the past. The researchers conclude their paper by saying that their findings show the need for further research looking into the human health implications of these radicals.

Advertisement

Equally, further work is needed to understand how temperature, moisture, and skin exposure may influence the generation of OH radicals.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. World’s top three Christian leaders in climate appeal ahead of U.N. summit
  2. Exclusive: Investors call for governments to toughen climate accounting – letter
  3. Oracle uses AI to automate parts of digital marketing
  4. Shipwrecks of World War I are a seabed museum in Turkey

Source Link: Human Skin Creates A Haze Of Chemical Emissions In Indoor Air

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Mother Orca Seen Carrying Dead Calf Once Again On Washington Coast
  • A Busy Spider Season Is Brewing: Why This Fall Could See A Boom Of Arachnid Activity
  • What Alternatives Are There To The Big Bang Model?
  • Magnetic Flip Seen Around First Photographed Black Hole Pushes “Models To The Limit”
  • Something Out Of Nothing: New Approach Mimics Matter Creation Using Superfluid Helium
  • Surströmming: Why Sweden’s Stinky Fermented Fish Smells So Bad (But People Still Eat It)
  • First-Ever Recording Of Black Hole Recoil Captured During Merger – And You Can Listen To It
  • The Moon Is Moving Away From Earth At A Rate Of About 3.8 Centimeters Per Year. Will It Ever Drift Apart?
  • As Solar Storm Hits Earth NASA Finds “The Sun Is Slowly Waking Up”
  • Plate Tectonics And CO2 On Planets Suggest Alien Civilizations “Are Probably Pretty Rare”
  • How To Watch The “Awkward” Partial Solar Eclipse This Weekend
  • World’s Oldest Pots: 20,000-Year-Old Vessels May Have Been Used For Cooking Clams Or Brewing Beer
  • “The Body Is Slowly And Continuously Heated”: 14,000-Year-Old Smoked Mummies Are World’s Oldest
  • Pizza Slices, Polaroid Pictures, And Over 300 Hats: What’s Left Behind In Yellowstone’s Hydrothermal Areas?
  • The Mathematical Paradox That Lets You Create Something From Nothing
  • Ancient Asteroid Ripped Apart In Collision Had Flowing Water
  • Flying Foxes Include The World’s Biggest Bat And The Largest Mammal Capable Of True Flight
  • NASA Responds To Claims That Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Is An Advanced Alien Spacecraft
  • Millions Of Tons Of Gold Are In Earth’s Oceans, Potentially Worth Over $2 Quadrillion
  • The Race Back To The Moon: US Vs China, Will What Happens Next Change The Future?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version