Macro–meso two-scale model for predicting the VOC diffusion coefficients and emission characteristics of porous building materials

Abstract

Through the observation of the pore structure and mercury intruding porosimetry (MIP) experiments of some typical porous building materials, we found that the diffusion coefficient of the material can be expressed by that of a representative elementary volume (REV) in which the pore structure can be simplified as a connection in series of macro and meso pores. Based upon that, a macro–meso two-scale model for predicting the diffusion coefficient of porous building materials is proposed. In contrast to the traditional porous mass transfer model for determining the diffusion coefficient described in the literature [Blondeau, P., Tiffonnet, A.L., Damian, A., Amiri, O., Molina, J.L., 2003. Assessment of contaminant diffusivities in building materials from porosimetry tests. Indoor Air 13, 302–310; Seo, J., Kato, S., Ataka, Y., Zhu, Q., 2005. Evaluation of effective diffusion coefficient in various building materials and absorbents by mercury intrusion porosimetry. In Proceedings of the Indoor Air, Beijing, China, pp. 1854–1859], the proposed model relates the volatile organic compound (VOC) diffusion coefficient of building material not only to the porosity of the building material, but also to the pore size distribution and pore connection modes. To verify the model, a series of experiments of VOC emissions of three types of medium-density board were conducted. The comparison of the model and experimental results shows that the proposed model agrees much better with the experimental results than the traditional models in the literature. More validation for other building materials is needed. The proposed model is useful for predicting the VOC diffusion coefficient of porous building materials and for developing low VOC emission building materials.