Comparative research between closed chamber C-history method and other methods for measuring characteristic parameters of building materials

Volatile organic compounds (VOC)emitted from building materials seriously affect people's health, comfort and productivity. Up to now several methods have been proposed to measure the three characteristic parameters (initial emittable concentration, partition coefficient and diffusion coefficient)of VOC emission from building materials by applying closed chamber. In the paper, a comparative study between the closed chamber C-history method and other available methods (multi-emission/flush regression method, multi-equilibrium regression method and variable volume loading method)is presented. The results indicate that the maximum relative deviation of the measured characteristic parameters by applying the above-mentioned methods is less than 25%. Considering that the closed chamber C-history method just needs one emission process to obtain the three parameters, the experimental time is generally less than 3d. Therefore, the closed chamber C-history method is more convenient and suitable for engineering application compared to other methods in the literature.