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- Residential and commercial buildings account for nearly 40% of total U.S. energy consumption.
- Worldwide building energy use accounts for 33% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
- On average, Americans spend over 21 hours per day inside of buildings; the most vulnerable (infants and elderly) spend even more time indoors.
- The exposure of Americans to toxic air pollutants is dominated by what we breathe indoors, and corresponding health risks dwarf other environmental issues.
- Indoor air pollution is responsible for 5,000 premature deaths every day in developing countries. Women and children are particularly affected.
- Studies have shown that improved indoor air quality can raise the test scores of school children.
- Reasonable changes in building design and operation to improve indoor environmental quality may have annual economic benefits (in terms of worker productivity) on the order of tens of billions of dollars in the U.S.
- If designed and operated properly, buildings can be shelters that substantially reduce population exposures to harmful outdoor air pollution.
Students, staff and faculty within the Building Energy and Environments program conduct research in academic laboratories that are unmatched in range of cutting-edge instrumentation and simulation systems. Most of the research activities take place in labs at the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources (CEER) at the University of Texas’ J.J. Pickle Research Campus. There, five separate laboratories totaling 550 m2 are devoted to Building Energy and Environments research. An additional 100 m2 microbiological laboratory and a façade thermal laboratory are based on the main university campus.
These laboratory facilities are used for:
- Experiments using physical simulation systems
- Preparation for field studies
- Instrumentation calibration and maintenance
- Analysis of samples collected in the field or in laboratory
Building Energy and Environments laboratories contain a wide range of instruments for analysis of gaseous and particulate pollutants. Instrumentation includes:
- Eight gas chromatographs equipped with MS, ECD, and FID detectors and thermal desorption auto-samplers for analysis of VOCs, SVOCs, SF6, and other compounds
- Particle sizing, counting, and generation equipment covering particles from 3 nm - 20 µm, including a scanning mobility particle sizer and an aerodynamic particle sizer
- A wide range of analyzers for inorganic gases including NH3, NOx, H2O2, ClO2, CO, CO2, and O3Building and HVAC characterization tools including digital pressure gages, blower doors, duct testers, and airflow and velocity sensors
- Building energy assessment tools including true power meters, heat flux transducers, and an infrared camera