Models for estimating organic emissions from building materials: Formaldehyde example: Fid-Bau Portal

Models for estimating organic emissions from building materials: Formaldehyde example

Hawthorne, Alan R. / Matthews, Thomas G.

Abstract One important source of chronic exposure to low levels of organic compounds in the indoor environment is emissions from building materials. Because removal of offending products may be costly or otherwise impractical, it is important that the emissions of organic pollutants be understood prior to incorporation of these materials into buildings. Once the organic pollutants of concern are identified, based on potential health effects and emission potential from the building material, it is necessary that an emission model be developed to predict the behavior of emission rates under various indoor conditions. Examples of the type of requirements that must be addressed in developing models for estimating organic emissions from building materials into the indoor environment are presented. Important factors include the products' characteristic source strengths at standard test conditions, impact of variations in environmental conditions (such as temperature and humidity), concentrations of the modeled organic pollutants in indoor environments and product ages. Ideally, emission models should have physical/chemical bases so that the important physical factors can be identified and their relative importance quantified. Although a universal model describing organic emissions from all building materials may not be feasible due to the tremendous variety of organic products and building materials in use, the most studied of the volatile organic compounds from building materials, formaldehyde, is used to illustrate an approach to the development of a specific model for organic emissions.