title: An Investigation on Formaldehyde Emission Characteristics of Wood Building Materials in Chinese Standard Tests: Product Emission Levels, Measurement Uncertainties, and Data Correlations between Various Tests.
abstract: As a large producer and consumer of wood building materials, China suffers product formaldehyde emissions (PFE) but lacks systematic investigations and basic data on Chinese standard emission tests (CST), so this paper presented a first effort on this issue. The PFE of fiberboards, particleboards, blockboards, floorings, and parquets manufactured in Beijing region were characterized by the perforator extraction method (PE), 9-11 L and 40 L desiccator methods (D9, D40), and environmental chamber method (EC) of the Chinese national standard GB 18580; based on statistics of PFE data, measurement uncertainties in CST were evaluated by the Monte Carlo method; moreover, PFE data correlations between tests were established. Results showed: (1) Different tests may give slightly different evaluations on product quality. In PE and D9 tests, blockboards and parquets reached E1 grade for PFE, which can be directly used in indoor environment; but in D40 and EC tests, floorings and parquets achieved E1. (2) In multiple tests, PFE data characterized by PE, D9, and D40 complied with Gaussian distributions, while those characterized by EC followed log-normal distributions. Uncertainties in CST were overall low, with uncertainties for 20 material-method combinations all below 7.5%, and the average uncertainty for each method under 3.5%, thus being acceptable in engineering application. A more complicated material structure and a larger test scale caused higher uncertainties. (3) Conventional linear models applied to correlating PFE values between PE, D9, and EC, with R2 all over 0.840, while novel logarithmic (exponential) models can work better for correlations involving D40, with R2 all beyond 0.901. This research preliminarily demonstrated the effectiveness of CST, where results for D40 presented greater similarities to EC-the currently most reliable test for PFE, thus highlighting the potential of Chinese D40 as a more practical approach in production control and risk assessment.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Wood Science and Engineering, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.|MOE Key Laboratory of Wooden Material Science and Application, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.|MOE Engineering Research Center of Forestry Biomass Materials and Bioenergy, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Wood Science and Engineering, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Wood Science and Engineering, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Dandan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Wood Science and Engineering, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Guojun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: R & D Center for Natural Fiber Composites and Environmentally Friendly Adhesives, Zhejiang Chengzhu Advanced Material Technology Co., Ltd., Shaoxing, China.
authors.forename: Zaihua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Wood Science and Engineering, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.|MOE Key Laboratory of Wooden Material Science and Application, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.|MOE Engineering Research Center of Forestry Biomass Materials and Bioenergy, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Shuangbao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000032:analysis*; D000068476:Beijing; D002623:Chemistry Techniques, Analytical / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D003252:Construction Materials / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D005557:Formaldehyde / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D035501:Uncertainty; D014934:Wood / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D005557:Formaldehyde