exposing effects of typical scents in people’s homes. This includes air fresheners, candles, even
floor cleaners. The nanoparticles that are being produced from the fragrances are causing homes
to become polluted. Engineers, Nusrat Jung and Brandon Boor, talk about how people should
really not be breathing in these volatile chemicals due to the fact that the scents are chemically
manufactured. They conduct an experiment with a tiny house that has built-in monitors to look at
the air quality and detect unhealthy particles in the air. With this system they were able to see the
magnitude of harm different household products emit from their fragrance. For example, wax
melts emit terpenes which is the chemical that reacts with ozone which forms nanoparticles. This
goes with any product that is used to make your home smell a certain way. Even if these products
claim they are “nontoxic” they still contribute greatly to indoor pollution. The article mentions
multiple comparisons that help people look at the situation from a different perspective. Such as
that cooking fuel emits ten quadrillion particles that are smaller than three nanometers, leading to
people inhaling ten to one hundred times more of these particles from cooking than car exhaust.
Or the fact that scented products, candles, do even more damage than cooking and car exhaust.
In order to move the experiment forward the two engineers tested a particle size magnifier which
is an instrument that can detect the size of a single nanometer indoors and outdoors. This led to
Jung and Boor to compare the environments and bring light to indoor air pollution. This machine
also helped them determine that specifically cyclic volatile methyl siloxanes are also floating in
the air due to hair products. This type of research is important because it can damage the
condition of our respiratory system and spread to other organs. Overall, this tiny house lab they
have created has been able to create awareness and discover toxic chemicals in our houses that
most, if not all, were aware of.
https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/2025/Q1/air-inside-your-home-may-be-more-polluted-than-o
utside-due-to-everyday-chemical-products/
Posted by Stephanie Park
This topic is obviously of wide interest. You might have mentioned that the piece has been mentioned widely in social media and on news sites ("Real Simple", "The Brighter Side of the News", "The Environmental News Network", etc.) . It is not that the scents are chemically manufactured that necessarily makes them a hazard. It is that the scents react with ozone to form nanoparticles that can penetrate deeply into the lungs and potentially cause problems. The ozone comes largely from outdoor pollution that makes its way into the home. The natural pine scents from trees outdoors do the same thing in the presence of ozone. But the potential problem indoors is certainly cause for concern. The Purdue workers are finding specific dosages from a variety of indoor sources. Note that they are specific about their scenarios. They specify the amount of cooking oil (1kg) and the setting for auto pollution (beside a busy road). This context is important for understanding their point about indoor pollution. Their goal seems to raise awareness and they appear to be collaborating on making an indoor particle sizer available. You should probably break up your text as paragraphs and/or headings to increase it's readability. The figures should also have captions, but of course we had production difficulties. Overall a good post on a timely topic. The view of chemistry is negative, of course, although there is the implication that the solution to chemical problems is more and better chemical technology.
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