Summary
This Application Note describes how sampling technologies for thermal desorption that are typically used by test laboratories for screening products for chemical emissions can also provide manufacturers with tools that greatly aid the development of low-emitting products and materials, and thus compete in the expanding market for ‘green’ products.
Taking adhesives, flooring materials and a glazing spacer as examples, we show how Markes’ sampling equipment can be used to compare emissions between products, to assess the effect of manufacturing processes, and to troubleshoot problems arising during manufacture.
Watch the video below (8:01 min)
Introduction
The release of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (VOCs and SVOCs) from products and materials is increasingly subject to regulation in many countries. This, in conjunction with rising consumer awareness of the health risks of exposure to chemical emissions indoors, is driving demand for improved assessment and labelling of products. These new regulations have a large impact, with manufacturers of a wide variety of products being in the front line, together with their suppliers. These include manufacturers of flooring, furniture, wood-based products, insulation materials, coatings, adhesives and sealants, toys, domestic goods and cleaning products, among others1. The majority of these regulations require products to be tested for emissions of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (VOCs and SVOCs). Formal product certification is carried out by accredited laboratories using reference tests. These involve the product being placed in a 100–1000 L chamber, with vapour sampling onto sorbent tubes, and analysis by thermal desorption–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (TD–GC–MS). The length of time needed for these tests (3 or 28 days in Europe and 10–14 days in the USA), and the stringent conditions that need to be maintained (23°C and 50% relative humidity) make these tests both expensive and time-consuming. Consequently, there is demand from industrial laboratories for simpler sampling methods that allow the rapid assessment of chemical emissions as part of routine quality control and during product development. Two such methods are direct desorption, and dynamic headspace extraction using a microchamber. Used in conjunction with TD–GC(–MS), these allow meaningful chemical emissions data to be collected in industrial laboratories, enabling manufacturers to develop and evaluate low-emission, high-value materials and compete in the expanding market for ‘green’ products. In this Application Note we use four examples to illustrate the benefits of being able to carry out material emissions screening in-house:
- Comparing cured and uncured adhesives.
- Comparing an adhesive with a competitor’s product.
- Assessing the effect of manufacturing processes on the final emission profiles of flooring tiles.
- Troubleshooting – determining the cause of the failure of a glazing spacer.
>> Download the full Application Note as PDF
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