Pesticide persistence in an indoor environment and decontamination studies to clean contaminated surfaces following pesticide misuse cases

Decontamination studies evaluated the effectiveness of liquid-based surface decontaminants against pesticides on indoor surfaces. Building materials, representing nonporous and porous surfaces, were contaminated with common pesticides, including malathion, carbaryl, fipronil, deltamethrin, and permethrin as well as commercial formulations thereof. Pesticide surface concentrations were representative of the pesticide-specific levels measured during field investigations involving misapplications of pesticides in homes or businesses (25–2,400 µg/100 cm2 surface concentration range). Decontamination testing occurred via a single or repeated application of the decontaminant without further mechanical removal or rinse steps. Decontaminants were both off-the-shelf and specialized solutions representing various chemistries (hypochlorite, hydrogen peroxide, quaternary ammonium compounds and ammonium salts). The persistence of surface residues was also investigated to assess the potential reduction of pesticide mass on surfaces under simulated indoor environmental conditions. The datasets provide the pesticide mass recovered from coupons and the calculated decontamination efficacies for all decontamination studies.

This dataset is associated with the following publication: Oudejans, L., A. Mysz, E. Snyder, B. Wyrzykowska-Ceradini, J. Nardin, D. Tabor, J. Starr, D. Stout, and P. Lemieux. Remediating Indoor Pesticide Contamination from Improper Pest Control Treatments: Persistence and Decontamination Studies. D.Aga JOURNAL OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, USA, 397(5): 11, (2020).