TY - JOUR A1 - Even, Morgane A1 - Wilke, Olaf A1 - Kalus, Sabine A1 - Schultes, P. A1 - Hutzler, C. A1 - Luch, A. T1 - Formaldehyde emissions from wooden toys: Comparison of different measurement methods and assessment of exposure N2 - Formaldehyde is considered as carcinogenic and is emitted from particleboards and plywood used in toy manufacturing. Currently, the flask method is frequently used in Europe for market surveillance purposes to assess formaldehyde release from toys, but its concordance to Levels measured in emission test chambers is poor. Surveillance laboratories are unable to afford laborious and expensive emission chamber testing to comply with a new amendment of the European Toy Directive; they need an alternative method that can provide reliable results. Therefore, the application of miniaturised emission test chambers was tested. Comparisons between a 1 m3 emission test chamber and 44 mL microchambers with two particleboards over 28 days and between a 24 L desiccator chamber and the microchambers with three puzzle samples over 10 days resulted in a correlation coefficient r2 of 0.834 for formaldehyde at steady state. The correlation between the results obtained in microchambers vs. flask showed a high variability over 10 samples (r2: 0.145), thereby demonstrating the error-proneness of the flask method in comparison to methods carried out under ambient parameters. An exposure assessment was also performed for three toy puzzles: indoor formaldehyde concentrations caused by puzzles were not negligible (up to 8 µg/m3), especially when more conservative exposure scenarios were considered. KW - EN 717-3 KW - Formaldehyde KW - Wooden toys KW - Emission test chamber KW - Flask method KW - Microchamber PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-520196 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14020262 VL - 14 IS - 2 (Special issue: Measurement of the environmental impact of materials) SP - 262-1 EP - 262-16 PB - MDPI AN - OPUS4-52019 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Even, Morgane A1 - Juritsch, Elevtheria A1 - Richter, Matthias T1 - Selection of gas standards, gas chromatography column and adsorbents for the measurement of very volatile organic compounds (C1–C6) in indoor air N2 - The ISO 16000-6 standard gives directions to adapt the analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor and test chamber air to very volatile organic compounds (VVOCs). The same techniques with sorbent-based active sampling, thermal desorption and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS) should be used. However, VVOCs require gaseous standards, an adapted GC column and a reliable sampling adsorbent. This work presents experimental results to tackle those three experimental gaps. A stable standard gas mixture containing 47 VVOCs, 13 VOCs and an internal standard was successfully generated. It was employed to study the suitability of seven types of chromatography columns. The use of PLOT (Porous Layer Open Tubular) columns such as PoraBOND Q is well suitable for VVOC analysis. The recoveries of the 60 analytes on a total of 16 adsorbents and their combinations were determined: A combination of the graphitized carbon black Carbograph 5TD 40/60 and the carbon molecular sieve CarbosieveTM SII showed great recoveries for all analytes. Carbon molecular sieves adsorb water which can impair the analysis. A dry purge of the multi-sorbent in the sampling direction led to a complete water removal and promising recoveries of the analytes. KW - VVOC KW - VOC KW - ISO 16000-6 KW - Gas chromatography KW - Thermal desorption KW - Air sampling PY - 2023 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2022.340561 SN - 0003-2670 VL - 1238 SP - 1 EP - 12 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-56366 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Richter, Matthias A1 - Juritsch, Elevtheria A1 - Jann, Oliver T1 - Determination of recovery rates of adsorbents for sampling very volatile organic compounds (C1-C6) in dry and humid air in the sub-ppb range by use of thermal desorption gas chromatography-mass spectrometry N2 - The reliable measurement of very volatile organic compounds (VVOC) in indoor air by use of thermal desorption gas chromatography (TD-GC) in order to include them into evaluation schemes for building products even nowadays is a great challenge. For capturing these small molecules with carbon numbers ranging from C 1 –C 6 , strong adsorbents are needed. In the present study, recovery rates of nine suitable adsorbents of the groups of porous polymers, graphitised carbon blacks (GCB) and carbon molecular sieves (CMS) are tested against a complex test gas standard containing 29 VVOC. By consideration of the recovery and the relative humidity (50% RH), combinations of the GCB Carbograph 5TD, the two CMS Carboxen 1003 and Carbosieve SII as well as the porous polymer Tenax® GR were identified to be potentially suitable for sampling the majority of the VVOC out of the gas mix. The results reveal a better performance of the adsorbents in combination than being used alone, particularly under humid sampling conditions. The recovery rates of the chosen compounds on each adsorbent should be in the range of 80–120%. KW - VVOC KW - Indoor Air: Adsorbent performance KW - Recovery rate KW - Thermal desorption KW - Gas chromatography PY - 2020 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2020.461389 VL - 1626 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Elsevier AN - OPUS4-51106 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -