Environmental pollution is still one of the greatest challenges for Europe and worldwide. While outdoor air quality is frequently discussed in terms of NOx or ozone levels, indoor pollution is often overlooked. However, as many people spend most of their time indoors and because of increased building insulation and reduced air exchange, indoor pollution levels can be significantly higher and actually contribute similarly to the overall burden of disease.

The tutorial introduced the “why, what and how” of monitoring indoor pollution with special emphasis on volatile organic compounds (VOC). These are major contributors to both short (headaches, dizziness) and long term (asthma, cardiovascular diseases, cancer) health effects. The tutorial focussed on the new standard VDI/VDE 3518 part 4 defining standardized test instructions and test gases for VOC detectors for indoor air quality measurement. Target audience were engineers in sensors and sensor systems R&D, quality control and calibration as well as in building management.

Many thanks to Dr. Richard Fix of Bosch Sensortec for the excellent collaboration both in getting the standard finalized and in presenting the new approach duuring this tutorial.