The use of a housecleaning product in an indoor environment leading to oxygenated polar compounds and SOA formation: Gas and particulate phase chemical characterization

Chemical speciation has been performed using a new method based on simultaneous sampling of both gas and particulate phases on sorbent tubes and filters. This method allowed the identification and quantification of about 35 products in the gas and particulate phases. Among them, products known to be specific from limonene ozonolysis such as limononaldehyde, ketolimonene and ketolimonic acid have been detected. Some other compounds such as 2-methylbutanoic acid had never been detected in previous limonene ozonolysis studies. Some compounds like levulinic acid had already been detected but their formation remained unexplained. Potential reaction pathways are proposed in this study for these compounds. For each experiment, chemical data are coupled together with physical characterization of formed particles: mass and size and number distribution evolution which allowed the observation of new particles formation (about 87,000 particle cm−3). The chemical speciation associated to aerosol size distribution results confirmed that limonene emitted by the housecleaning product was responsible for SOA formation. To our knowledge, this work provides the most comprehensive analytical study of detected compounds in a single experiment for limonene ozonolysis in both gaseous and particulate phases in real indoor environment.