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- CO2 assisted impregnation (2)
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- Volatile organic compounds (2)
- Capsules (1)
- Emission test chamber (1)
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Organisationseinheit der BAM
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) are ubiquitous in the indoor air since they are emitted from materials used indoors. Investigations of these materials are mostly carried out in emission test chambers under controlled climatic conditions. Reference materials are an important tool for quality assurance/Quality control of emission test chamber measurements but so far they are not commercially available. In this study, a new approach was tested to develop an appropriate reference material with homogenous and reproducible emission of the VOC with well measurable air concentrations in emission test Chambers larger than 20 L at air change rates of 0.5 - 1 /h.
Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) was selected as Matrix material which was impregnated with 2,2,4- trimethyl-1,3-pentanediol monoisobutyrate (texanol) as test VOC using compressed carbon dioxide. An optimization of the impregnation parameters such as temperature, pressure, time, VOC injection volume and TPU sample size was performed until the targeted area specific Emission rate (SERa) value was reached. Further aspects like process control, storage effects and correlation of the sample size to the emission rate were investigated. It was found that the SERa immediately after sample preparation were not reproducible between the batches but became unified 10 days after loading into the test chamber indicating the necessity of aging before use. SERa between 13,000 and 18,000 mg m-2 h-1 were obtained, and the impregnated materials could be well stored in aluminum-coated polyethylene foil for at least seven weeks without significant losses. Furthermore, the impregnation of styrene and the SVOC 2,6-diisopropylnaphthalene was tested.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) are ubiquitous in the indoor air, since they emit from materials used indoors. Investigations of these materials are mostly carried out in test chambers under controlled climatic conditions. Quality control of these test chamber measurements is important but there is a lack of commercially available homogenous reference materials as required for round robin tests or quality assurance of laboratories. The approach of the present study is the impregnation of a supporting material with VOC, which are reproducibly released in measurable chamber air concentrations under standardised test conditions. A polymer made of Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) was chosen as carrier material. It was impregnated with the VOC trimethyl pentanediol isobutyrat (texanol).
Emission testing of products is currently a rapidly increasing field of measurement activity. Labelling procedures for construction products are based on such emission test chamber measurements and hence measurement performance should be verified. A suited procedure for this purpose is the testing of one unique homogenous material in different laboratories within a Round Robin Test (RRT). Therefore, it is useful to have a reference material which can be used within inter-laboratory studies or as part of the quality management system to ensure comparable results. Several approaches on the development of reproducibly emitting materials have been published. These have in common only to emit a single VOC – toluene. Two further research studies carried out by BAM aimed to develop reference material for emissions testing containing one or more VOC in a single material. The first approach was a doped lacquer with Volatile and Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC/SVOC) and the second was Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) or a Squalane/Paraffin mixture. Results received with the lacquer based material were presented in more detail.
Micro-(nano-)encapsulation technology involves building of a barrier between the core and the environment and offers a number of benefits to preserve the functional and physicochemical properties of core material. Tremendous progress has been made in synthesizing well-defined capsules to achieve desired properties such as particle size, chemical composition, and controlled release of the payload.
Encapsulation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that could evaporate with a defined rate is of immense interest for application in emission reference materials (ERM). These are urgently needed for quality assurance and quality control purposes (QA/QC) required by test standards for the determination of chemical emissions of construction and other materials for interior use. As such ERMs are hardly available on the market, the EU-funded EMPIR project MetrIAQ [1] was started to fill this gap by developing a material with temporally constant emission of VOCs typically found in indoor air.
Different capsules in a size range between 5 and 50 μm were synthesized through an interfacial polyaddition/polycondensation reaction in direct (water-in-oil) system. As VOC several types of hydrophobic liquid materials were used. After synthesis, the morphology and physicochemical properties of capsules were characterized by electron microscopy, FTIR and DSC/TGA. An encapsulation efficiency up to 90% could be reached. The emission kinetic of volatile agents was studied in emission test chambers at 23 °C and 50% RH for 14 days. First results indicate that variation of the cross-linking grade of the shell material is one important parameter to adjust the desired emission rate. The overall aim is to achieve a consistent emission profile that decreases by less than 10 % over a target period of at least 14 days.