Building materials, emissions

Chemical and biological evaluation of building material emissions. II. Approaches for setting indoor air standards or guidelines for chemicals. Indoor Air, 7, 17-32. 

Nordtest (1990) Building materials emission of volatile compounds, chamber method. NT Build 359, Finland... 

Nordtest (1990) Building Materials Emission of Volatile Compounds, Chamber Method. NT Build 358. Nordtest, Postbox, Esbo, Finland. 

Nordtest (1995) Nordtest method Building Materials Emission of volatile organic compounds-Field and Laboratory Emission Cell (FLEC), NT BUILD 438. 

Wolkoff P. and Nielsen P.A. (1996) A new approach for indoor climate labeling of building materials-Emission testing, modeling and comfort evaluation. Atmos. Environ., 30, 2679-2689. 

Nielsen G.D., Hansen L.F., Wolkoff P, (1997) Chemical and Biological Evaluation of Building Material Emissions. II. Approaches for Setting Indoor Air Standards or Guidelines for Chemicals. Indoor Air 7, 17-32. 

EXPOSURE ROUTES Inhalation (indoor air, building material emissions, consumer product emissions, tobacco smoke and ambient air) occupational exposure in reinforced plastic and polystyrene industries. 

Hawthorne, A., et al. (1987) Models for estimating organic emissions from building materials formaldehyde example. Atmos. Environ. 21, No. 2. Lewis, R. G., et al. (1986) Monitoring for non-occupational exposure to pesticides in indoor and personal respiratory air. Presented at the 79th Annual Meeting of the Air Pollution Control Association, Minneapolis, MN. 

For VOCs, control options are multiple. Source reduction or removal includes product substitution or reformulation. Particleboard or pressed w ood has been developed and used extensively in building materials for cabinet bases and subflooring and in furniture manufacturing for frames. If the product is not properly manufactured and cured prior to use as a building material, VOCs can outgas into the interior of the residence or building. Other sources of VOCs may be paints, cleaning solutions, fabrics, binders, and adhesives. Proper use of household products will lower volatile emissions. 

Sulfur dioxide emissions may affect building stone and ferrous and nonferrous metals. Sulfurous acid, formed from the reaction of sulfur dioxide with moisture, accelerates the corrosion of iron, steel, and zinc. Sulfur oxides react with copper to produce the green patina of copper sulfate on the surface of the copper. Acids in the form of gases, aerosols, or precipitation may chemically erode building materials such as marble, limestone, and dolomite. Of particular concern is the chemical erosion of historical monuments and works of art. Sulfurous and sulfuric acids formed from sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide when they react with moisture may also damage paper and leather. 

The emissions of gases and vapors (and particles) from surfaces (both building materials and equipment) are easy to define in theory but can be very difficult to quantify in practice. There are many contaminants that can be gen erated, which makes it necessary to define the levels for a few, which are to be cho.sen from data from suppliers or from contaminants known to be generated by used materials. ... 

Wallace LA, Pellizzari ED, Leaderer B, et al. 1987. Emissions of volatile organic compounds from building materials and consumer products. Atmos Environ 21 385-395. 

So the indoor emissions need a specific fate and exposure modelling. In Meijer et al. [16, 17] a characterization model and characterization factors for indoor emissions are presented. In the articles also indoor emissions of some building materials are estimated and their effects are calculated. It is concluded that damage effects of indoor emissions cannot be neglected. 

Method of Assessing the Heat Emission from Building Materials. 

The replacement of timber products by nonrenewable materials is an unfortunate development, since it has been repeatedly shown that the use of timber does have associated environmental benefits compared with the use of nonrenewables (e.g. Marcea and Lau, 1992 Hillier and Murphy, 2000 Bowyer etal., 2003 Lippke etal., 2004). Timber has a lower embodied energy content (and hence a more favourable carbon emission profile) compared to most other building materials and can provide other benefits, such as improved thermal properties. It and the products made from it (in common with other renewable materials) can be used as a repository for atmospheric carbon dioxide. Wood is derived from a renewable resource, albeit potentially an exhaustible one unless it is managed correctly. Disposal of wood can be readily achieved with little environmental impact (subject to how the wood has been treated prior to disposal). 

Emission rates from other building materials such as flooring, paints, varnishes, and sealants also tend to increase, not surprisingly, with temperature (e.g.,... 

The dependence of VOC emissions from building materials on relative humidity is more complex, with some emissions increasing with relative humidity, but others not. For example, Sollinger et al. (1994) report that the VOC emissions from carpets did not change with relative humidity over the range from 0 to 45% RH. On the other hand, the emissions of formic and acetic acids from latex paints have been reported to... 

Tichenor, B. A., and M. A. Mason, Organic Emissions from Consumer Products and Building Materials to the Indoor Environment, JAPCA, 38, 264-268 (1988). 

Sulfuric acid is a stronger acid than sulfurous [pAa(l) < 0, p7fa(2) = 1.99 at 25 °C and infinite dilution] rain as acidic as pH 2.1 has been recorded at Hubbard Brook, New Hampshire, and the pH of water droplets in clouds can be as low as 1.5 (for comparison, the pH of rainwater saturated with atmospheric CO2 is about 5.6 at 15 °C). Acid rain destroys building materials (especially marble), kills fish and vegetation, accelerates metallic corrosion (Sections 16.5 and 16.7), and can be directly harmful to humans (e.g., it causes the alligator skin condition reported in Cubatao, Brazil). Sulfate rain is not completely without redeeming features, as many soils (e.g., in southern Alberta, Canada) are sulfur-deficient. On balance, however, its acidity is unacceptable, and sulfur oxide emissions must be controlled at the source. Several control measures are possible ... 

All kinds of building materials, furniture, textiles, computers etc. are potential sources of SVOCs/POMs and estimation of the total content in the material may be required. One reason to estimate the total or initial content is that it is an important parameter in physical based emission models for example, for phthalate emission from vinyl flooring (Clausen et al, 2007). The materials can be purchased as new, or sampled from the indoor environment under investigation. The materials should be stored in a way that preserves their content of SVOCs/POMs and prevents contamination and degradation of the materials and their content of SVOCs/POMs. The content of SVOCs/POMs in the sampled materials can be estimated by extraction (see Section 2.5.1). 

To be able to predict the release of SVOCs from a material to the indoor environment it is important to understand the fundamental mechanisms in order to mathematically model the emissions. The emission behavior of DEHP from PVC in the FLEC and CLIMPAQ experiments (Clausen et al., 2004) have now been successfully modeled (Xu and Little, 2006). Fluid building materials such as paints (Clausen, 1993 Xu and Little, 2006) and wood oil (Clausen, 1997) may also emit SVOCs and are usually used on large indoor surfaces such as walls, ceilings and floors. Such wet materials may be applied on substrates like wood or plaster board. The emission of for example, Texanol from water-based paint was found likely to be limited by gas phase mass transport (Clausen, 1993) similar to the DEHP emission from PVC (Clausen et al., 2004). 

Laboratory Investigations of VOC Emissions from Building Materials... 

Deng, B. and Kim, C.N. (2004) An analytical model for VOCs emission from dry building materials. Atmospheric Environment, 38 (8), 1173-80. 

Wolkoff P. (1996) An emission cell for measurement of volafrle organic compounds emitted from building materials for indoor use-the field and laboratory emission cell FLEC. Gefahrstoffe-Reinhaltung der Luft, 56 (4), 151-7. 

Xu, Y. and Zhang, Y.P. (2003) An improved mass transfer based model for analyzing VOC emissions from building materials. Atmospheric Environment, 37 (18),... 

---