Comparison of methods to analyze chemical concentrations in solid building materials: preliminary results

To use a mass-transfer based model for the emissions of volatile organic compounds from dry building materials, it is necessary to know several pieces of priori information. One of the important information is the initial concentration (Co) of VOCs in the solid material. In this research, three methods were compared for the extraction of terpenes from plywood to determine Co. The tested methods were supercritical fluid extraction (SFE), SFE with methanol (SFE w/ MeOH) and Soxhlet extraction (SE). The qualitative results obtained by the three methods were similar. However, quantitative agreement between methods was poor for all compounds. The applicability of SFE to building materials can be seriously limited by the difficulty in finding optimal extraction conditions.
8th International Conference of Healthy Buildings: 04 June 2006, Lisbon, Portugal