Determination of formaldehyde emissions from construction products using chamber method and GC-MS-PT

Increased public awareness and concern for indoor air pollution health consequences for the internal environment, demand for building materials and items of equipment with low emission of organic compounds. Formaldehyde has been classified as toxic and carcinogenic category 1. Formaldehyde can cause allergies, conjunctivitis, cough, headache, and may cause irreversible changes in the risk of a health condition. In world there is still a lot of information on the toxicity of formaldehyde on the human body. The aim of the study was to evaluate the emission of formaldehyde and other compounds with a new analytical method with the identification. We demonstrated that GC-MS technique in combination with Purge & Trap (P&T) can be useful in the analysis of volatile organic compounds in building products containing synthetic resins. Described method applies techniques to enable the determination of formaldehyde is based on air samples in laboratory chambers, followed by absorption in water, concentrating in Purge & Trap device and analysis volatile organic compounds technique of gas chromatography with MS detection. The combination of GC-MS with Purge & Trap system provides 1000-fold concentration of samples prior to the chromatographic column DB-VRX (length 60 m, diameter 0,25 mm, a thickness of 1,4 microns stationary phase). Elaborated method for determination of emissions of formaldehyde GC-MS-PT is characterised by good linearity of 1-80 mu g/l repeatability is 1.2% (for the concentration of 80 mu g/l) and 7.5% (for concentrations of 1 mg/l). The uncertainty at the level of 1 mu g/l reaches 20.6%. The limit of quantification is 0.26 g/l, corresponding to emission of 1.3 mu g/m3. The method is designed to analyze the emission of formaldehyde from samples: including laminate flooring, parquet, mineral wool and wood-based materials that is made by binding with adhesives or glues one or more of the following materials: wood fibres, or stripped, or sheared wood sheets, and/or wood residues from forest, plantations, sawn-wood, residues from pulp/paper industry as well recycled wood. Wood-based materials comprise: hardboard, fibreboard, medium density fibreboard, particleboard, OSB (Oriented Strand Board), plywood, and panels in solid wood. The term 'wood-based material' also refers to composite materials made from wood-based panels coated by plastics, or laminated plastics, metals and other coating materials as well as finished/semi-finished wood-based panels. The results indicate that target compound varied in the range of 0.75 mg/m3) for the panels completely covered up to 22.5 mg/m3 for MDF. Emission of formaldehyde from samples of mineral wool was of 5.5 to 18.75 mu g/m3. Emissions of plywood veneered panels was 50.88 mg/m3. Emission of formaldehyde from mineral wool samples ranged from 5.5 to 18.75 mg/m3. In the case of MDF emissions were above 50 mg/m3 (58.4 and 54.0 mg/m3). Results of our research concerning emissions of formaldehyde from wood products confirm that such materials meet the requirements for the class of El in Europe. In materials intended for the use inside the premises with mineral wall the limit of formaldehyde concentrations was not exceeded. In construction products containing synthetic resins was confirmed by GC-MS of acetonitrile and acetone. The performed identification of hazardous chemicals showed that wood., based materials emit irritating and allergenic substances: formaldehyde, acetonitrile, acetone, carbamide, formamide, acetaldehyde, acetic acid, dimethylosilanol, butanal, 2-butanone, 3-ethylobutanal. Trace levels of aldehydes, amines, amides, nitriles and esters have been found in construction materials containing plastics resin formaldehyde