METHOD FOR VOC MONITORING IN INDOOR ENVIRONMENT USING NOVEL AND VERSATILE SORBING MATERIALS

摘要

VOC emissions are a matter of serious concern, because of the health hazards associated with them. VOCs, in specific, in indoor air are of serious concern because of their reactivity as the photochemicak precursors towards other pollutants as well as their specific toxic potential. They are wide ranged compounds and are being emitted from various sources viz; new materials and products from building construction, insulation, bonding resin and fabrics, cleaning materials, and personal care products. The conventional adsorbent viz. activated carbon and tenax are beset with the drawbacks of lack of selectivity and versatility, which has being overcome by developing a new class of materials viz; surface modified zeolites (SZs). The SMZs have been synthesized by treating zeolite with surfactant and have been used for indoor monitoring of VOCs vis-a-vis conventional adsorbents. The results obtained are very encouraging for SMZs. The VOCs qualitatively and quantitively sorbed on SMZs are much higher than activated carbon, illustrating the utility of SMZs as a noveland versatile sorbing material for VOCs. The usage of SMZ in indoor monitoring would provide an accurate and correct scenario of Vocs in indoor air, which in turn would facilitate in identification of suitable control measures to mitigate the health hazards associated with VOCs.[IN-DEL-2005-00535A]