Chemical Composition of Atmospheric Air in Nemoral Scots Pine Forests and Submountainous Beech Forests: The Potential Region for the Introduction of Forest Therapy

Tomasz Dudek (), Mariusz Marć and Bożena Zabiegała
Additional contact information
Tomasz Dudek: Department of Agroecology and Forest Utilization, University of Rzeszów, 35-601 Rzeszów, Poland
Mariusz Marć: Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdańsk University of Technology, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland
Bożena Zabiegała: Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdańsk University of Technology, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 23, 1-21

Abstract: Studies show that forests are one of the main recreational destinations. This can be explained by their beneficial effects on the health of their visitors, which can be attributed to compounds from the terpene group. The aim of this research was to determine the chemical composition of air in the interiors of Nemoral Scots pine forests and submountainous beech forests, with the determination of compounds of the terpene group. Samples of organic compounds present in the air were collected with the use of Tenax TA sorbent tubes. The process of separation, identification, and determination of the extracted organic compounds was carried out with the use of the gas chromatography technique integrated with a flame ionization detector. Additional identification of the extracted compounds was carried out with the use of GC coupled with mass spectrometry. The most abundant group of compounds was the aliphatic hydrocarbons, both saturated (linear and branched) and unsaturated (terpenes). Carbonyl compounds were also found in the collected samples, but they constituted no more than 10% of all compounds present on the chromatograms. The concentrations of terpenes and terpenoids in the forest atmosphere varied from 10 to 74 µg·m −3 , representing on average 33% of the total volatile organic compounds.

Keywords: forest bathing; public health; terpenes; forest air; environmental quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15838/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15838/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15838-:d:986712

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().