Indoor air quality

News and Updates

A white, square plastic CO2 meter sits on a table in a restaurant setting, reading 621 ppm.

NIST’s Indoor CO₂ Tool Can Help Assess Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality

July 19, 2022

The free tool calculates target CO2 levels based on the user’s desired ventilation rate and information about a building and its occupants.

Streamlined NIST Tool Could Help Homeowners, Renters Reduce Airborne Exposure to COVID

November 24, 2021

COVID-19 is still circulating in the U.S. and may once again gain traction as families and friends gather indoors over the holidays. There are several measures

A hospital room containing a nurse and patient exhaling aerosols carrying viruses. Air ducts and filters are depicted above and a portable air filter is shown in the room.

NIST Airflow Model Could Help Reduce Indoor Exposure to Aerosols Carrying Coronavirus

June 11, 2020

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built an online tool that could help decrease the concentration of aerosols

Projects and Programs

Metrics and Tools for Sustainable Buildings

Ongoing

Building stakeholders need practical information, data, metrics, and tools that can be incorporated into investment choices and policymaking related to

Measuring the Performance of Net-Zero Energy Homes

Completed

A Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility (NZERTF) has been constructed and extensively instrumented. The facility incorporates a high-performance envelope, a

L researcher Steven Emmerich adjusts a multi-gas analyzer that will measure carbon monoxide, oxygen, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons concentrations produced by such a generator located, against safety advice, in a garage.

Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality in Low-Energy Buildings

Ongoing

NIST is developing the tools to define and verify high-performance indoor air quality (IAQ) as well as the broader indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in low

Using NIST's small chamber test facility, researchers are assessing the performance of a prototype reference material to improve the measurement of volatile organic compound emissions from building products.

Contaminant Control in High-Performance Buildings

Ongoing

Net-zero energy strategies have the potential to significantly impact the indoor air quality of buildings. This project is designed to: 1) better understand how

Publications

Application of Indoor CO2 in Response to the Pandemic

April 3, 2023

Author(s)

Andrew K. Persily, Oluwatobi Oke

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been many recommendations to monitor indoor CO2 concentrations. However, the technical basis for these

Implementing NIST Infiltration Correlations

March 31, 2023

Author(s)

Jyrteanna Teo, Lisa Ng

This tutorial is a guide on how to implement the NIST infiltration correlations (Ng et al., 2021) into EnergyPlus building energy simulation software for the US

Standard 62.1's Ventilation Rates: A little history and a little about the present

March 30, 2023

Author(s)

Andrew K. Persily

Navigating Ventilation in Schools

January 11, 2023

Author(s)

Andrew K. Persily

Software

Tools and Instruments