Cynthia Howard-Reed

Standard Formaldehyde Source for Chamber Testing of Material Emissions: Model Development, Experimental Evaluation, and Impacts of Environmental Factors

Formaldehyde, which is recognized as a harmful indoor air pollutant for human health, is emitted mainly from urea-formaldehyde resin in wood products. Chamber tests are used to evaluate formaldehyde emission rates from these products. However, there is no available formaldehyde standard reference emission source to assess the performance of chamber testing systems. In this work, a LIFE (liquid-inner tube diffusion-film-emission) formaldehyde reference is described. The formaldehyde source consists of a polytetrafluoroethene (PTFE) tube that holds a formaldehyde-water solution with a concentration of 16 g formaldehyde per 100 mL water, with a thin polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film cover. Formaldehyde emission parameters for the PDMS film (diffusion coefficient and partition coefficient) were determined experimentally, thereby enabling the prediction of the formaldehyde emissions from the source for use as a reference value in a chamber. Chamber tests were conducted in a 51 L stainless steel ventilated chamber. The impacts of temperature and relative humidity on the emissions were investigated. Results show the LIFEs chamber test results match those predicted by a mass transfer model. As a result, this formaldehyde source may be used to generate a reference concentration in product emission testing chambers, thereby providing a powerful tool to evaluate the performance of the chamber testing systems.