Investigating cigarette-smoke indoor pollution in a controlled environment

The objective of this study was to investigate the evolution of pollutant concentrations generated by smoking in a controlled indoor environment. For this purpose, a small flat in the centre of Athens, Greece was equipped with NOx, O3 and SO2 continuous measuring instruments and portable analysers for spot measurements of TVOCs and CO2, while two volunteer smokers remained inside and smoked as normal inhabitants. The results indicated that when windows are kept closed and smoking takes place NOx, CO2 and TVOCs concentrations increase by an order of 3, 4 or 10 times, respectively, and decrease returning to initial levels after 1 or 2 h.