Predicting the emissions of VOCs/SVOCs in source and sink materials: Development of analytical model and determination of the key parameters

• Published in: Environment international Vol. 160; p. 107064
• Main Authors: Zhang, Xuankai, Wang, Hao, Xu, Baoping, Wang, Haimei, Wang, Yuanzheng, Yang, Tao, Tan, Yanda, Xiong, Jianyin, Liu, Xiaoyu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2022; Elsevier
• Subjects: adverse effects; air; Air Pollution, Indoor - analysis; diffusivity; environment; flame retardants; Flame Retardants - analysis; foams; furniture; Humans; Hybrid optimization; Indoor air quality; Interior Design and Furnishings; Mass transfer; phosphates; Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs); system optimization; Temperature; Transition temperature; volatile organic compounds; Volatile organic compounds (VOCs); Volatile Organic Compounds - analysis; wood; Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs); Transition temperature; Hybrid optimization; Mass transfer; Volatile organic compounds (VOCs); Indoor air quality
• ISSN: 0160-4120; 1873-6750; 1873-6750
• DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2021.107064

[Display omitted] •An analytical model is developed to simulate the emissions for both VOCs and SVOCs.•A hybrid optimization method is applied to accurately determine the key parameters.•The effectiveness of the model and measurement method is validated by experiments.•The transition temperature from SVOC-type to VOC-type is observed and determined. The emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) from indoor materials pose an adverse effect on people’s health. In this study, a new analytical model was developed to simulate the emission behaviors for both VOCs and SVOCs under ventilated conditions. Based on this model, we further introduced a hybrid optimization method to accurately determine the key parameters in the model: the initial emittable concentration, the diffusion coefficient, the material/air partition coefficient, and the chamber surface/air partition coefficient (for SVOCs). Experiments for VOC emissions from solid wood furniture were performed to determine the key parameters. We also evaluated the hybrid optimization method with the data of flame retardant emissions from polyisocyanurate rigid foam and VOC emissions from a panel furniture in the literature. The correlation coefficients are high during the fitting process (R2 = 0.92–0.99), demonstrating effectiveness of this method. In addition, we observed that chemical properties could transfer from SVOC-type to VOC-type with the increase of temperature. The transition temperatures from SVOC-type to VOC-type for the emissions of tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP) and tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCIPP) were determined to be about 45 ℃ and 35 ℃, respectively. The present study provides a unified modelling and methodology analysis for both VOCs and SVOCs, which should be very useful for source/sink characterization and control.