INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — With summer heating up, HVAC units all across the state will be running, working to keep people cool inside. While they do, they’ll be impacting air quality.

Office buildings are pumping toxic chemicals into the air. That’s according to a recent study by researchers at Purdue.

Most buildings in the skyline of Indianapolis have air conditioners on their roofs. The researchers who did the study told I-Team 8 that’s how the chemicals are getting into the air, but the root source of the chemicals is surprising.

“In densely populated cities like Indianapolis, buildings can have a measurable impact on outdoor air quality,” said Purdue University Professor Branden Boor. “Buildings can pump out similar amount of chemicals as we would have from the transportation sector, the industrial sector.”

Boor and his colleague Nusrat Jung used a rare machine to test air flowing through air ducts that eventually make it outside.

“Small sample of air. It runs it through and gives us the chemical speciation of what exactly is present in the air,” Jung said.

“Some of the chemicals that we identified in this studies and other studies do have adverse health outcomes,” Boor said.

The surprising part of the results is the source.

“We as humans are the source of all the pollutants that were generated. It is coming from all of the personal care products that we have applied. Probably to our hair. Probably deodorant, perfumes,” Jung said.

The good news: It’s a problem with a fix. A specialized air filter to trap the chemicals before they get outside.

“It would be very effective to just clean the air that we’re discharging to the outdoor environment using advanced air cleaning technologies just like we do to the air that’s flowing into our buildings,” Boor said.