Search

Based on the extraction method presented by Smith et al. (2008), this paper proposes an improved method, the multi-emission/flush regression method, to simultaneously determine the initial emittable concentration and the partition coefficient. Compared to the extraction method, the proposed method has the following advantages: (1) it is unnecessary for the target volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to emit completely from the material, thus greatly reducing experimental time; (2) it provides a simpler way to obtain the partition coefficients of VOCs for tested materials and can avoid the measurement uncertainties at low VOC concentrations which often occur during the last few cycles of the extraction method; (3) it does not require grinding the building material into powders thus making this method more convenient to use. Comparisons were made between the initial emittable VOC concentrations determined by the original extraction method and the proposed method. Results show good agreements between these two methods. To further validate the proposed method, the type of static chamber developed by Wang et al. (2006) was used to conduct the experiment for a type of medium density board, and formaldehyde was selected as the target compound. Based on the initial emittable concentration and partition coefficient obtained using the proposed method, and the diffusion coefficient obtained by the mercury intruding porosimetry, the chamber formaldehyde concentration was predicted and compared with the experimental measurements. Results show that the predicted chamber VOC concentration using the measured parameters agree well with the experimental data.

The diffusion coefficient (D) and partition coefficient (Kma) are the two important parameters used to predict the volatile organic compound (VOC) emission or sorption characteristics in porous building materials. D and Kma may be strongly affected by temperature (T). In this study, we derived a new correlation between D and T based on the assumption that molecular diffusion is dominant, and evaluated this correlation using a series of existing experimental data. The modeling results using the new correlation agree well with the experimental data. The correlation would be useful for assessment of indoor air quality under different environmental (temperature) conditions.

The sorption of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by different building materials can significantly affect VOC concentrations in indoor environments. In this paper, a new model has been developed for simulating VOC sorption and desorption rates of homogeneous building materials with constant diffusion coefficients and material–air partition coefficients. The model analytically solves the VOC sorption rate at the material–air interface. It can be used as a “wall function” in combination with more complex gas-phase models that account for non-uniform mixing to predict sorption process. It can also be used in conjunction with broader indoor air quality studies to simulate VOC exposure in buildings.