A student lives in an apartment with a floor area of 60 m2 and ceiling height of 1.8 m. The apartment has a fresh (outdoor) air exchange rate of 0.5/hr. The stove in the apartment heats by natural gas. The student cooks a meal using two gas burners that each emit carbon monoxide (CO) at a rate of 100 mg/hr. The outdoor CO concentration can be assumed to be negligible (0 ppm). The initial (time = 0) indoor CO concentration can be assumed to be 0 ppm (except for problem 4). Carbon monoxide can be considered as an inert gas, i.e., it does not stick to or react with any surfaces or other gases in air.
1. Assume that the student cooks for a long enough period of time to achieve a steady-state CO concentration in the apartment. What is that concentration in ppb?
2. Assume that the student cooks for only 45 minutes and turns off both burners at that time. What is the CO concentration in ppb at the end of 45 minutes?
3. Repeat problem 2 for air exchange rates that vary from 0.1 to 1/hr and plot the concentration at 45 minutes (in ppb) versus air exchange rate.
4. Assume that for the conditions of problem 2, the student waits 25 minutes after turning the burners off and then starts cooking again with two burners on. How long will it take to reach a concentration that is 95% of steady-state under this condition?
Note that you can actually address this question with an eloquent mathematical derivation (preferred) or simply by crunching the concentration profile in a spreadsheet.
What is the concentration at 95% of steady-state?
Compare your result with the time that would be required to reach 95% of steady-state had the initial indoor CO concentration been 0 ppm.