Screening of formaldehyde indoor sources and quantification of their emission using a passive sampler

The formaldehyde emission rates from building and furniture materials in 24 student rooms were measured using a passive sampling method parallel to a monitoring of indoor and outdoor concentrations. This passive tool represents an interesting alternative to standard dynamic methods as it is easier to implement for field investigation. Although the indoor formaldehyde concentrations (21.3 μg m−3 on average) are at a medium level, consistent with earlier published results, the recorded emission rates are globally low (from 1 to 15 μg m−2 h−1) except for the high emission of beds identified in one building (87.3 μg m−2 h−1 on average). Data analysis revealed that the emissions released from furniture and building materials are the main contributions to the indoor formaldehyde concentrations with 45 and 43% on average. The high formaldehyde levels in rooms are mainly explained by the rise of formaldehyde emissions from indoor materials with temperature although the buildings and the furniture were older than 7 years. Basing on the data of emission rates, outdoor concentrations and air exchange rates, a one compartment mass balance model was used to calculate indoor concentrations. A good agreement was found between the predictions of the model and the measured indoor concentrations. This methodology could lead to the definition of arrangements for the efficient reduction of indoor formaldehyde levels.