Research On Some Key Problems Of Furniture VOC Emission Labeling System

The volatile organic compounds (VOC) emitted from building materials andfurniture used indoors is recognized as one of the main reasons causing bad indoor airquality. In European countries and U.S., furniture labeling systems were established toaddress this issue and the effect was good. But in western labeling systems, the testingtime is too long (7~28days) and too many VOCs are targeted. The method to determinethe threshold is not that scientific and the results are too strict. As the world'slargest producer and exporter of furniture, China should have its own scientific furniturelabeling system fully considering China's national condition. This thesis studied theaddressed problems and the main academic contributions are as follows:Firstly, a simulation method that could find the conditions under which there areemission parameters for furniture is proposed. The results show that for normally usedwood-based furniture (board furniture and wood veneer furniture), there are equivalentdiffusion coefficient Dequ, partition coefficient Kequand initial emitable concentrationC0,equ. Based on this, a novel method is proposed to determine the emission parametersof furniture by applying C-history method and to predict the furniture emission bymodeling which is viewed to be a rapid furniture testing method. By conductingindependent validation tests, the accuracy of the method is proved to meet therequirement of engineering application. This method could shorten the testing time inwestern labeling systems from7~28days to3days or even shorter.Secondly, according to the survey results of1500residential homes in Beijing, it isfound that the distribution of room area and furniture loading factor are in compliancewith lognormal distribution. Two reference rooms model–reference living room andreference bedroom are established based on the survey results. Taking reference roomsas the intermedia, the relationship between the indoor air quality standard and theproduct standard are built which may help to solve the paradoxical problem--"goodproduct quality that causes bad indoor air quality". The emission rate threshold and itscalculation method are then proposed.Thirdly, through the test of some kinds of wood-based panel and furniture as well asthe health influence of VOCs, the typical VOCs and their emission parameters of the wood-based panel and furniture used in China are obtained. It is found that the mainpollutant emits from wood-based panel is still formaldehyde and that emit fromfurniture are formaldehyde and benzene-compounds. Considering the detectionfrequency of pollutants and their toxic, target VOCs are selected for furniture labeling inChina.Finally, based on the research results addressed above, a technical process offurniture labeling is proposed and relating software was developed. The pre-labelingtesting was conducted to eight kinds of furniture in order to validate the feasibilities ofthe process.