VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS (VOCS) CHAPTER 31.

• Main Author: W Tucker*
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Carbonic acid
• Online Access: http://oaspub.epa.gov/eims/eimsapi.dispdetail?deid=65944

The term "volatile organic compounds' (VOCs) was originally coined to refer, as a class, to carbon-containing chemicals that participate in photochemical reactions in the ambient (outdoor) are. The regulatory definition of VOCs used by the U.S. EPA is: Any compound of carbon, excluding carbon monoxide, carbond dioxide, carbonic acid, metallic carbides or carbonates, and ammonium carbonate, which participate in atmospheric photochemical reactions. The term VOCs has a distinctly different- -and much less rigorously defined- -meaning in the indoor air literature. Indoor air quality investigators usually consider all organic vapor-phase compounds measured by their sampling and analysis methods to be VOCs. Various efforts have been made to categorize indoor vapor-phase organic compounds into classes. Some VOCs can be malodorous pollutants, sensory irritants (primarily to mucous membranes in eyes and nasal passages), or hazardous air pollutants. As a class, VOCs are the most prelavant of indoor air pollutants. They are also the most studied. The most common sampling and analytical techniques include collection of VOCs on some type of solid sorbent, followed by thermal desorption or solvent extraction and analysis by a gas chromatograph equipped with a mass spectrometer or flame ionization detector. To receive a PDF copy of a preprint of this book chapter, send an e-mail request to: [e-mail]