Evaluation Of Volatile Organic Compounds(VOCs) Emissions From New Furniture Products And The Model Of Loading Rate

Indoor air pollution has become one of the serious environmental problems at present.And the emission of volatile organic compounds?VOCs?from furniture is a complex mass transfer process that would seriously affect indoor air quality.In order to learn about the emission characteristics of VOCs from furniture,the emissions of VOCs from ten kinds of new furniture products which were the common furniture in indoor including footstool,bedside table and mattress and so on were measured in an environmental chamber.The VOCs were collected by Tenax-TA and measured by thermal desorption and gas chromatography?FID?external standard method.Nine and nineteen VOCs were identified and quantified,respectively.This study analyzed the emission components and emission contents of VOCs from new furniture.The results showed that the types and concentrations of VOCs released from different types of furniture varied greatly.This was closely related to the structure of the furniture,the corresponding constitute materials and the process technology.And benzene series were the main pollutants released from furniture.A double-exponential model was used to study the VOCs emissions from new furniture.The VOCs released from the furniture showed a double exponential decay with time.VOCs concentrations increased rapidly and reached maximums at around1-2 h,and then decreased as the emission rates slowed down.At the same time,the effect of loading rate?the ratio of the furniture product surface area to the chamber volume?on VOCs emissions was investigated qualitatively and quantitatively.The loading rate has a significant effect on the VOCs emissions from furniture.That was,the VOCs concentrations emitted from furniture increased as the loading rate increased.This effect was more pronounced in the initial period of emission and gradually decreased with time,and when the concentrations tended to 0,there is no difference among different loading rates.The concentration-time data of measuring72 hours showed that,when the loading rate was doubled,the VOCs concentrations of furniture 1 and furniture 5 increased 1.108-2.096 and 1.116-3.095 times,respectively.Based on the mass transfer model of VOCs emitted from building materials,the key parameters C₀?D_m and K of VOCs released from furniture were evaluated with a combination of mass transfer model and mathematical program,and the VOCs concentration at each time point was predicted by the program.The results showed that the predicted concentration-time curve agreed well with the experimental results,which verified the reliability and correctness of the method.Similarly,the effect of loading rate on the parameter evaluation was studied.The results showed that with the increased of loading rate,the initial release concentration of the furniture internal VOCs of the parameter C₀ was significantly reduced,and the diffusion coefficient the initial release concentration of the furniture internal VOCs of D_m was also increased markly.Moreover,health risks due to VOCs emitted from new furniture were assessed.The cancer risk R value of benzene released from furniture 9 was at least two orders of magnitude larger than 1×10^-6,indicating high cancer health risk.With the increase of loading rate,the HI value?non-cancer risk hazard index?of benzene series released from new furniture increased significantly,implying high non-cancer risk.The present research should be useful for evaluating VOCs emissions from new furniture and relevant health risk.