A practical method and its applications to prioritize volatile organic compounds emitted from building materials based on ventilation rate requirements and ozone-initiated reactions

From National Research Council Canada

DOIResolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1420326X16660601
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Name affiliation
  1. National Research Council of Canada. Construction
FormatText, Article
Journal titleIndoor and Built Environment
ISSN1420-326X
1423-0070
Volume26
Issue2
Pages166–184
Abstract
Volatile organic compounds emissions from building materials can be a major pollution source in low-occupant-density spaces. Composite-style indoor air quality references, which reflect the combined effects of multiple volatile organic compounds, can be used to determine ventilation rate requirements based on building material emissions. The lowest concentration of interest concept was adopted to implement the idea. Twenty-eight building materials selected from the National Research Council of Canada database were subjected to emission modelling, resulting in 101 volatile organic compounds as a starting volatile organic compound pool. A method was proposed to generate a volatile organic compound priority list that determines ventilation rate requirements while considering ozone-initiated reactions. Three priority lists were obtained based on three lowest concentration of interest schemes, i.e., AFSSET, AgBB and EU-LCI, with each consisting of 17–21 volatile organic compounds that were most likely to attribute to large ventilation rate requirements. Also, analyses of selected volatile organic compounds showed that the changes in the composition of the priority lists due to ozone-initiated reactions could be ignored at a typical indoor ozone concentration level. The application of priority lists was discussed for source control and air cleaning device testing. This paper provides a method to prioritize the chemicals based on ventilation rate requirements with a goal of developing volatile organic compound control strategies at building design stage.
Publication date
PublisherSage
LanguageEnglish
Peer reviewedYes
NPARC number23002334
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Record identifierb89b737c-3f88-46dd-846a-45efa87d8897
Record created2017-10-19
Record modified2020-03-16
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