Human chemical exposure often occurs indoors, where large variability in contaminant concentrations and indoor chemical dynamics make assessments of these exposures challenging. A major source of uncertainty lies in the rates of chemical transformations which, due to high surface-to-volume ratios and rapid air change rates relative to rates of gas-phase reactions indoors, are largely gas-surface multiphase processes. It remains unclear how important such chemistry is in controlling indoor chemical lifetimes and, therefore, human exposure to both parent compounds and transformation products. We present a multimedia steady-state fugacity-based model to assess the importance of multiphase chemistry relative to cleaning and mass transfer losses, examine how the physicochemical properties of compounds and features of the indoor environment affect these processes, and investigate uncertainties pertaining to indoor multiphase chemistry and chemical lifetimes. We find that multiphase reactions can play an important role in chemical fate indoors for reactive compounds with low volatility, i.e., octanol-air equilibrium partitioning ratios (Koa) above 108, with the impact of this chemistry dependent on chemical identity, oxidant type and concentration, and other parameters. This work highlights the need for further research into indoor chemical dynamics and multiphase chemistry to constrain human exposure to chemicals in the built environment.
Keywords: chemical exposure; contaminant fate; indoor chemistry; modeling; multiphase kinetics.