Characterization of VOC emissions from composite wood furniture: Parameter determination and simplified model

Abstract

The emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from furniture contribute significantly to indoor air pollution. The majority of studies focus on the emission behaviors of building materials, and seldom consider furniture. This study develops a novel prediction-correction method to determine the three key parameters characterizing VOC emissions from furniture: the initial emittable concentration, the diffusion coefficient, and the partition coefficient. In addition, a simplified model is proposed to simulate the VOC emission behaviors, which owns the merits of simple form and high accuracy. Experiments investigating VOC emissions from two kinds of composite wood furniture under ventilated conditions were conducted to determine the key parameters. The calculated gas-phase concentrations based on these parameters and the simplified model agree well with experimental data from the ventilated chamber, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed measurement method and the simplified model. The application range of the model is then obtained through dimensionless analysis, and the model is further extended to evaluate VOC emissions for other loading ratios. This study is the first attempt to simultaneously and rapidly measure the three key parameters for furniture-VOC combinations under ventilated conditions, and should be helpful for enriching the database, and for the rapid screening of VOC emissions from furniture.