This study measured gas-phase organic compounds in a multipurpose building containing a commercial kitchen. The commercial kitchen underwent a ventilation intervention to improve the efficiency of the kitchen’s range hood and reduce fugitive cooking emissions into the building’s air. We assessed gas-phase organic compound levels before and after the ventilation intervention was installed via a hybrid targeted analysis and nontargeted positive matrix factorization (PMF) approach. None of the quantified target gas-phase organic compounds exceeded their occupational exposure thresholds before or after the ventilation intervention was installed. However, the behavior of compounds in and beyond this quantified target set was dynamic and complex with many measured species decreasing in intensity as the ventilation intervention was implemented but many also increasing. To understand the temporal patterns of these individual species and those from a nontargeted analysis across all measured gas-phase species, we investigated their indoor sources via PMF. The cooking-related factor, as identified via PMF, accounted for up to 72% of total measured PTR-MS ion signal during the highest intensity cooking time (11:00–15:00) with occupancy-related emissions contributing up to 38% of the total PTR-MS signal during this time. The cooking-related factor did not show a statistically significant change in signal during the ventilation intervention, suggesting the intervention was ultimately ineffective.
Lu et al. (Fri,) studied this question.