Last updated on Monday, October 06, 2025
@article{Marchetiit2017IndoorAirMuseum,
author = {Andrea Marchetti and Sanaz Pilehvar and Lucy 't Hart and
Diana Leyva Pernia and Olivier Voet and
Willemien Anaf and Gert Nuyts and Elke Otten and
Serge Demeyer and Olivier Schalm and
Karolien De Wael},
journal = {Building and Environment},
note = {5 year impact factor 4.464},
pages = {132 --- 146},
title = {Indoor environmental quality index for conservation
environments: The importance of including particulate
matter},
volume = {126},
year = {2017},
abstract = {It is commonly known that the conservation state of
works of arts exhibited inside museums is strongly
influenced by the indoor environmental quality (IEQ).
Heritage institutions traditionally record and
evaluate their IEQ by monitoring temperature,
relative humidity, and -more rarely-light. However,
smart use of technology enables monitoring other
parameters that give a more complete insight in
environmental Ôair aggressivenessÕ. One of this
parameters is particulate matter (PM) and especially
its concentration, size distribution and chemical
composition. In this work, we present a selection of
data sets which were obtained in a measuring campaign
performed in the War Heritage Institute in Brussels,
Belgium. A continuous monitoring of PM concentration
with a light scattering based particle counter was
performed. In addition the daily mass concentration
and size distribution of airborne PM was monitored by
means of Harvard impactors. The chemical composition
of sampled PM was inferred from the results of XRF
and IC analysis. The insights from these datasets are
combined with the results of traditional
environmental monitoring (temperature, relative
humidity and light intensity), and assessed against
the recommended guidelines for conservation
environments. By using an integrated approach based
on the calculation of an IEQ-index, we present a
straightforward methodology to evaluate and visualize
the IEQ including also continuous PM monitoring. It
is clear from the results of this study how including
PM in IEQ analysis allows to identify potential risks
for museum collections that remain invisible when
only traditional parameters are considered.},
annote = {internationaljournal},
doi = {10.1016/j.buildenv.2017.09.022},
issn = {0360-1323},
}