Measurements of VOC emissions from three building materials using small environmental chamber under defined standard test conditions

VOC emissions from three building materials, a particleboard, a carpet with rubber backing and a vinyl floor tile were measured. Samples of the chamber air were collected using multi-sorbent tubes during the chamber tests, and analyzed by thermal desorption (TD) GC/FID. GC peaks were identified using TD/GC/MS. Major VOCs emitted were solvents, aldehydes, C₁₀-and C₁₅-terpenes for the particleboard, alkanes, alkenes and 4-phenyl cyclohexene for the carpet. VOC emissions from vinyl floor tile were dominated by a mixture of two alkyl propanoates. First order exponential decay model and power law decay model were used to describe the emission factor decay from 12 h after the start of dynamic chamber tests.