EFFECTIVENESS OF AIR PURIFYING PAINTS FOR IMPROVING INDOOR AIR QUALITY IN OFFICES

Abstract

As building owners prioritises indoor air quality (IAQ) over energy efficiency since the onset of the pandemic, many have been searching for options that would improve IAQ in offices without incurring a huge cost. Moreover, doing so matters to many corporations as they are trying to make the office safe enough for employees to return to work. With the rise in prominence of air purifying paints as a cost-effective option to other air cleaning technologies available in the market, most commercial clients are unable to validate the claims stated on the paint tins. This study explores the effectiveness of air purifying paints commercially available in Singapore in improving various environmental parameters critical to good IAQ. When compared to the control setup that does not have an air purifying paint, the improvements in certain aspects of IAQ, such as formaldehyde and suspended particulate (PM), were not as fast as hypothesised. The conversion of formaldehyde and PM into harmless substances slowed down significantly as relative humidity (RH) increases. Not all total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) were removed by the paints. Moreover, very high concentrations of carbon dioxide were emitted as a by-product of the air purification process for all paints. These findings hint at the limited capabilities of air purifying paints in being a good support to improving IAQ in offices.