Proposal of methods for developing healthy building materials: Laboratory and field experiments

Abstract The state‐of‐the‐art of testing building materials for the emission of volatile organic compounds are reviewed and a set of methods to develop healthy building materials arc presented. Results of this laboratory showed that potential polluting building materials may be identified by comparison of headspace analyses of building materials with sampling of the indoor air. Qualitative GC/MS headspace analysis of building materials revealed that some materials acted as a sink for VOC emitting elsewhere in a building. The analysis also provided information of undesirable organic compounds emitting from materials. The combination of headspace analysis and sniffing of the eluting VOC provided a tool for substitution of malodorants, and development of an odourless building sealant.

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