CAEE Seminar: Research on Energy and Air Quality in the Built Environment at IIT

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Wishnick Hall, Room 113, 3255 S. Dearborn Street, Chicago, IL
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The Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering department will be hosting a seminar featuring Professor of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Dr. Brent Stephens. The topic of the seminar will be Research on Energy and Air Quality in the Built Environment at IIT.

Abstract

Buildings in the U.S. have a major impact on energy and the environment, including human exposures to airborne pollutants. Buildings account for over 40% of the country’s total energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and they also represent environments where people spend most of their time and are most exposed to a number of pollutants of both indoor and outdoor origin. Recent research conducted in the Built Environment Research Group at IIT continues to allow for a better understanding of energy use in buildings, connections between energy use and indoor air quality, and how varying indoor exposures to airborne pollutants can adversely impact public health. In this talk, I will highlight some recent advances in building energy and indoor air quality research, describing several of our recent projects, including:

  • Characterizing and predicting indoor exposures to outdoor airborne pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter
  • Evaluating the effectiveness and costs of using HVAC filters to remove different sizes and classes of indoor particulate matter, including PM2.5, ultrafine particles, and infectious aerosols
  • Measuring ultrafine particle emissions from desktop 3D printers and evaluating control strategies
  • Characterizing building environmental conditions and operational parameters in the Hospital Microbiome Project and other investigations of the microbiology of the built environment
  • Developing a network of Open Source Building Science Sensors (OSBSS)
  • Optimizing whole house retrofit packages for targeting 50% annual energy use reductions in older Chicagoland homes
  • Combining measurements and models to predict the impacts of climate change and weatherization on indoor air quality and chronic health effects in U.S. residences