When cooking, window cleaning, and other household activities can seem to be large amounts of volatile and particulate chemicals are released. You can deteriorate the indoor air quality so much so that she comes of a polluted big city.

Volatile organic Compounds in escape from products such as Shampoo, perfume and detergents, and contribute to the formation of ozone and fine dust particles. According to researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States, they contribute more to global air pollution than Cars and trucks: according to their findings open the case created by boiling water over a stove flame or toasting unexpectedly high proportions of gaseous pollutants and suspended particles in the air.

"Houses have never been considered a major source of air pollution in the Free betrachtet", Marina Vance, assistant Professor of mechanical engineering says. Together with colleagues, she has investigated how cooking and Cleaning can alter the chemistry of a house. For this, the researchers installed Sensors and cameras, with which you monitored the indoor air quality of a 1,200-square-meter house for a month. In the course of the month, they conducted a variety of daily household activities by – including cooking a complete Thanksgiving Dinner. To their Surprise, the measured concentrations of pollutants in the indoor environment are so high that their sensitive instruments had to be recalibrated.

Co-author Professor Joost de Gouw says: "Initially scepticism prevailed, whether these things contribute significantly to air pollution or not. In the future, we need to devote to these sources, the same attention as fossil fuels."

ZOU