Abstract
The annual production of water-based adhesives has increased in recent years. However, there are few reports about the chemicals emitted from water-based adhesives. To investigate volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and aldehydes emitted from water-based adhesive, six adhesive products sold for domestic use were dried in a Tedlar® Bag for 24 hours, then the air in the Tedlar® Bag was analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The predominantly detected compounds were acetic acid, 1-butanol, vinyl acetate, ethyl acetate, dimethyl glutarate, 3-methyl-3-methoxybutanol, 2-(2-butoxyethxy)ethanol, undecane, dodecane, formaldehyde, and acetaldehyde.
Polyvinyl acetate adhesive, which is one of the most commonly used water-based adhesives, is commonly used for arts and crafts lessons in elementary schools. To estimate indoor air pollution by polyvinyl acetate adhesive in a classroom, the temporal change of VOCs and aldehydes concentration emitted from newly applied polyvinyl acetate adhesive were measured by the small chamber test method. An exponential equation was then developed to evaluate the emission parameters of VOCs and aldehydes. The compounds detected in the chamber and their model-derived primary emission rates were 3-methyl-3-methoxybutanol at 183±31.0 mg/m2/hr, acetic acid at 164±42.0 mg/m2/hr, vinyl acetate at 24.0±2.4 mg/m2/hr, formaldehyde at 0.54±0.07 mg/m2/hr and acetaldehyde at 0.92±0.25 mg/m2/hr. For calculations the indoor environment in the classroom was defined as volume=192m3, air change rate=2.2/hr, number of students in the class=40 and adhesive application area=300cm2 per student. The estimated maximal concentration increase obtained by applying the polyvinyl acetate adhesive was about 1μg/m3 for formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, and about 670μg/m3 for the tota VOCs detected. The concentrations of predominantly detected VOCs and aldehydes in the polyvinyl adhesive were 5.8mg/g for 3-methyl-3-methoxubutanol, 3.2mg/g for acetic acid, 0.017mg/g for formaldehyde and 0.007mg/g for acetaldehyde.
