On organic emissions testing from indoor consumer products' use

Abstract

A wide range of consumer and personal care products may, during their use, release significant amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOC) into the air. The identification and quantification of the emissions from such sources is typically performed in emission test chambers. A major question is to what degree the obtained emissions are reproducible and directly applicable to real situations. The present work attempts partly to address this question by comparison of selected VOC emissions in specific consumer products tested in chambers of various dimensions. The measurements were performed in three test chambers of different volumes (0.26-20 m(3)). The analytic performance of the laboratories was rigorously assessed prior to chamber testing. The results show emission variation for major VOC (terpenes); however, it remains in general, within the same order of magnitude for all tests. This variability does not seem to correlate with the chamber volume. It rather depends on the overall testing conditions. The present work is undertaken in the frame of EPHECT European Project.

Keywords: Consumer products; Emission comparisons; Indoor air quality; Organic emissions; Test chamber.