Determination of total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) in elementary public schools of Caguas II District in the Municipality of Caguas, Puerto Rico

The goal of this study was to investigate the total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) concentration upon indoor and outdoor air quality in randomly selected elementary public schools of the Caguas II District Municipality of Caguas, Puerto Rico, and to compare it to those from the literature guidelines since there are no TVOC guidelines from regulating environmental agencies in the United States nor in Puerto Rico. Baseline measurements of this research compared to TVOC guidelines from the scientific literature show that TVOC do not seem to be an on-going problem in elementary public schools of Caguas II District because for most of the time of sampling measurements, there were no detectable levels of TVOC that could cause any potential health problems in children or in school personnel (>25mg/m3). Nevertheless, rural school 004 of this research had continuous TVOC air detection during every outdoor and indoor air samples having the same pattern of high TVOC peaks early in the morning at almost three to four times the TVOC guidelines (>25mg/m3) decaying close to midday. Indoor emission source could come from early cleaning practices in the classroom and outdoor emission sources could come from nearby industries or transportation emissions.