Early study of Surfactants in Indoor Dust and Their Connection With Street Dust

As surfactants enhance the membrane transport of organic compounds, it has to be assumed that they decisively influence the absorption of pollutants from house dust. Sampling sites for the surfactant analysis include housing areas, each location of which has different surroundings such as rural, urban, construction, and industrial area. Three stations had been selected for each housing area and cooking and smoking activities were recorded for each house. The concentration of anionic and cationic surfactants was determined as Methylene Blue Active Substances (MBAS) and Disulphine Blue Active Substances (DBAS) methods each using an ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer. The results indicated that the concentrations of MBAS and DBAS in indoor dust were much higher than the street dust. It is concluded that activities in the house itself contributed significantly to the high concentration level of MBAS and DBAS in indoor dust. Overall, the sequence of concentration level of anions is as follows, Cl^- > NO₃^- > SO₄^2-. The correlation between MBAS with all the anions are weak (R²_chloride = 0.0072, R²_nitrate = 0.2469, R²_sulphate = 0.00004) signifying that there is only a little connection between surfactants and these anions.