Abstract
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) generated from building materials are gaining attention as a major cause of indoor air pollution and they have been adopted as the subject of many researches projects. It is important to take measures against VOCs pollutions especially in renovated office buildings, where occupants are likely to move into the buildings immediately after the renovation work is completed.
Seen from the standpoint of the mass balance of indoor air pollutants, the most effective approach to reduce the concentration of VOCs in the indoor air, other than increasing the air exchange rates, is to reduce the VOCs emission rates. Building bake-out is a method used for this purpose. The bake-out method will allow VOCs to escape from building materials at an early stage, by keeping the entire room heated at a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius or higher for several consecutive days, and subsequently ventilating the room to accelerate VOCs emissions. The two purposes of the bake-out method are: (1) to reduce the indoor VOCs generation in the initial stage, and (2) to shorten the period in which the indoor VOCs concentration exceeds the standard value. So far no research report has been found that quantitatively evaluates the effectiveness of the bake-out method in respect to this problem.
The author implemented the bake-out method in an office where the renovation work was just completed and then measured the indoor VOCs concentrations regularly for a period of six months. Based on the results of the above examination, this paper will propose the bake-out method as a way to reduce the initial-stage indoor VOCs generation, it will also present a quantitative evaluation method to verify the bake-out method's effectiveness in the reduction of the subsequent indoor VOCs concentration.
