A screening method for detecting formaldehyde emitted from textile products

• Formaldehyde is a potential human carcinogen but widely used in processing textiles.
• A porous glass sensor is used to measure formaldehyde emitted from textile products.
• The method corrects for temperature dependence of emissions between 10 °C and 40 °C.
• The results agreed well (coefficient 0.92) with those of the acetylacetone method.
• Contrary to the standard test, the proposed method is suitable for on-site screening.

Formaldehyde is widely used to improve textile quality, but it is categorized as a potential carcinogen in humans. The concentration of formaldehyde emitted from textile products therefore has implications for public health. The standard method uses acetylacetone for determining formaldehyde extracted from textile products, but requires a water solution and the use of an analyzer. In this study, we present a method for screening textile-emitted formaldehyde via a porous glass sensor that we previously developed. Our method is suitable for on-site screening, whereas the commonly used method is not. The glass sensor was used to measure formaldehyde concentrations emitted from several kinds of textile products. The results showed good agreement (coefficient 0.92) with those of the acetylacetone method. Moreover, we estimate the effects of temperature, and suggest a formula to calculate concentration including temperature correction.