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Volatile Organic Compounds in Office Buildings

1. Presence of Volatile Organic Compounds in the Indoor Air

Department of Applied Physics, University of Athens

Maria Loizidou

Chemical Engineering Department, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Demosthenes Asimakopoulos

Department of Applied Physics, University of Athens

There is growing awareness concerning the variety of VOCs as well as their level in the indoor air. Measurements of VOCs were carried out in both the indoor and the outdoor air of six office buildings in Greece together with the measurements of other physical and chemical parameters. The experimental results showed that the toxic VOC (TVOC) concentrations in 65% of the rooms were higher than the recommended level of 200 µg.m^-3 and that the concentrations of TVOCs in the outdoor air were lower than the concentra tions in the indoor air in all the buildings examined. More than 60 compounds were identified from the TVOCs in each building among which the aromatic and aliphatic compounds were the most abundant. Although a number of oth er compounds were found, including terpenes, ketones, alcohols, aldehydes, esters and halogenated compounds, most of them did not exceed the level of 20 µg.m ^-3 in most of the rooms.

Key Words: Indoor air • Volatile organic compounds • Toxic volatile organic compounds • Offices

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