Building materials are often touted as being “green”, without a robust scientific definition of the meaning of this term. Nevertheless, there is a rapidly expanding market for such materials. One criterion that is sometimes used for green materials is that they are low emitting. However, this criterion generally applies to so-called “primary” emissions, typically of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are emitted from the actual components of the manufactured product. In fact, many green materials are bio-based, and comprised of components that may be highly reactive with ozone. This leads to the potential for significant “secondary” emissions of reaction products such as aldehydes and ketones. This study focuses on the reactivity of nine common green wall, flooring, ceiling, and cabinetry materials with ozone. More specifically, small electro-polished stainless steel chambers were used to expose these materials (ceiling tile, unglazed ceramic tile, natural cork wall-paper, aluminum tinted cork wall-paper, bamboo, UV-coated bamboo, wheat board, UV-coated wheat board, and sunflower board) to ozone at realistic indoor concentrations. The specific green ceiling tile that was tested was highly reactive with ozone, with degree of reactivity per unit area followed by natural cork wall-paper and wheat board. However, a preliminary generalization is that select green building materials are not significantly different in reactivity (measured in terms of reaction probability) than conventional analog materials for which there are ample data in the published literature.
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