MetrIAQ - Emissions of dangerous substances from building materials into indoor air

MetrIAQ - Metrology for the determination of emissions of dangerous substances from building materials into indoor air

Overview

The release of harmful substances from building materials, such as paints, flooring, and from other products used indoors, such as furniture, into the air must be minimised. The overall aim of the project is to develop traceable measurement of emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from such materials, by providing well-defined emission reference materials (ERM) and certified reference gas standards (gCRM), in accordance with the emission test chamber procedure described in EN 16516.

Objectives

The specific objectives of the project are:

1. To develop an emission reference material (ERM) that contains and releases relevant compounds typically emitted by construction products within the range of the EU-LCI list with a constant emission profile that decreases by less than 10 % over at least 14 days, in order to improve the quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) of the emission test chamber method as described in EN 16516.

2. To develop gaseous certified reference materials (gCRM) of indoor air pollutants for compounds selected from key groups that are relevant for the health-related evaluation of building products as stated in the EU-LCI-list, such as aldehydes, unsaturated aldehydes, cyclic dimethylsiloxanes and glycol compounds.

3. To validate the newly developed ERM and gCRM by investigating the short- and long-term stability, reproducibility and uncertainty in an inter-laboratory comparison, thereby demonstrating the benefits of the reference materials for the test procedure described in EN 16516.

4. To develop a suitable numerical model for simulating the transport processes inside the ERM and the compound release into test chamber air enabling the prediction of the emissions for each of the selected target VOC.

5. To contribute to the standards development work of the technical committees CEN/TC351 WG2 and ISO/TC146 SC6 to ensure that the outputs of the project are aligned with their needs, communicated promptly to those developing the standards and to those who will use them (e.g. test chamber operators and gas standards manufacturers), and in a form that can be incorporated into the standards at the earliest opportunity.