(VOC) and Organophosphate Flame Retardants (OPFR) in Building Materials
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Identification of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and organophosphate flame retardants (OPFR) in building materials Daniel Duberg 2017-05-29 Exam project, 15 HP, Chemistry Supervisor: Thanh Wang, Josefin Persson Examiner: Tuulia Hyötyläinen Abstract Humans today spend most of their time in various indoor settings such as housing, schools and workplaces. The quality of the indoor environment is therefore of great significance for our wellbeing. However, it has been suggested that the indoor environment contains over 6000 organic compounds, such as various volatile organic compounds (VOC). Around 500 of these compounds is believed to be due to emissions from different surrounding building materials such as insulation, plastic film, sealants and flooring. This study targeted building materials from three low energy preschools that were sampled and analyzed for emissions of VOCs and nine different organophosphate flame retardant compounds (OPFR) using a gas chromatograph coupled to a mass spectrometer (GC/MS). Low energy buildings are buildings that is particularly air tight to be so energy efficient as possible. The study uses a qualitative approach and therefore mainly identifies possible contribution from building materials to indoor environment. More than 100 different VOCs was identified and the most noticeable were meta-, ortho- and para-xylene, toluene, n-hexane and propylene glycol, all but the last compound is associated with hazardous health effects. The building materials that emitted the largest amounts of VOCs was sealants and adhesives. Linoleum flooring and acrylic was also large emitters. Tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCIPP) were identified in all samples and all nine targeted OPFR compounds were identified in the various material samples and dust samples. T-Flex tape and plastic film was the sample materials that emitted most OPFR compounds. Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 5 Background .............................................................................................................................................. 5 Indoor exposure .................................................................................................................................. 5 Indoor air quality ................................................................................................................................. 6 Low-energy buildings .......................................................................................................................... 6 Building materials ................................................................................................................................ 6 Emission testing ................................................................................................................................... 7 Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semi-volatile organic compound (SVOC) ............................ 7 OPFRs ................................................................................................................................................... 7 Materials and methods ........................................................................................................................... 9 Selected materials ............................................................................................................................... 9 Materials .............................................................................................................................................. 9 OPFRs and nBFRs ................................................................................................................................. 9 VOCs .................................................................................................................................................. 10 Emission sampling ............................................................................................................................. 10 Method .............................................................................................................................................. 10 Emission tests of building materials .................................................................................................. 10 Sampling and analytical procedure of OPFRs .................................................................................... 11 Analytical procedure of VOCs ............................................................................................................ 12 Dust and air sampling, preparation and analysis .............................................................................. 12 Results ................................................................................................................................................... 13 Emission of VOCs ............................................................................................................................. 14 Emissions of OPFRs ............................................................................................................................ 17 Emissions from building materials according to the literature ......................................................... 19 Discussion .............................................................................................................................................. 20 Emissions of VOCs ............................................................................................................................. 20 Emissions of OPFRs ............................................................................................................................ 22 Building materials .............................................................................................................................. 23 Analysis and evaluation ..................................................................................................................... 23 VOCs .............................................................................................................................................. 23 OPFRs ............................................................................................................................................. 24 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................ 24 Acknowledgment ................................................................................................................................... 24 References ............................................................................................................................................. 25 Appendix A ........................................................................................................................................ 28 Appendix B ........................................................................................................................................ 32 Appendix C............................................................................................................................................. 34 Introduction Humans today spend most of their time indoors and the indoor environment have been proven to cause inconvenience, especially among those who are oversensitive due to, for example, allergies and asthma. (1) A house that causes symptoms among its inhabitants is called “sick house” and it is believed that low air exchange rate combined with chemical emissions from building materials is one of the causes to these problems. (2) Since regulations have become stricter for buildings to lower their energy usage, low energy houses have become more common during the last decade due to their energy efficiency and low contribution to the climate. (3, 4) To investigate the potential contribution of chemical emissions from building materials to the indoor environment in low energy houses, three preschools around the Örebro region were selected. From the three preschools, approximately 13 building material samples were collected consisting of flooring, insulation, paint, adhesive, plastic film, sealant and tape. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs) were the chemical compounds of interest in this survey and all materials were analyzed for their content by two separate methods. To see possible correlation between VOC emissions from building materials and indoor environment, the material analysis was compared to air samples collected from the same preschools. Aims of project - To evaluate VOCs and OPFRs in building materials from three low-energy preschools. - To evaluate if emissions from building materials contributes to the indoor air quality. - To compare the composition of the identified chemical compounds with those found in other studies. Background Indoor exposure Humans are currently exposed to a wide range of industrial chemicals in our everyday life and a contributing factor is the amount of time spent in different indoor settings, which is approximately 20 hours per day. The risk of spending too much time in indoor settings could lead to increased exposure of chemicals that can be emitted from furniture,