CHARACTERIZATION OF VOC EMISSIONS FROM INTERIOR MATERIALS OF RAILROAD PASSENGER CABIN AND PREPARATION OF ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY INTERIOR MATERIAL

The indoor air quality of railroad passenger cabin is often polluted by various pollutants. The pollutantssources of the passenger cabin are the passengers with their belongings, the inflowing outdoor air, andthe interior materials like floorings, seats, paints, and adhesives. In this study, we focused on thepollutants emissions from the interior materials, and carried out the characterization of emitted volatileorganic compound (VOC) in an environmental chamber. We could find out that a large amount ofvarious VOCs emitted from the surface of interior materials. Especially, toluene and benzene emissionwas significant in our experiment, and these emissions seemed to affect the indoor air quality of thepassenger cabin. To minimize these VOC emissions, we also prepared environment-friendly interiormaterial in this study. We coated the titanium dioxide (TiO2) on the surface of the interior material toreduce the emission of hazardous organic air pollutants. We had our environmental chambersequipped with UV lamp to investigate the effect of UV irradiation on the VOC emissions from TiO2coated interior material. We monitored the VOC emissions over time with and without UV irradiation inour environmental chambers. We could observe that the interior materials coated with TiO2 emitted lessVOC than not coated ones in the absence of UV irradiation, which is probably due to the adsorption ofVOC on TiO2. Under UV irradiation condition, VOC levels in the environmental chamber with TiO2coated interior materials were lower because of the photocatalytic degradation of VOC. We also coatedthe interior materials with an antibacterial material to suppress the growing of bacteria on the interiormaterial. We could observe that the coating with a very small amount of antibacterial material on theinterior material could prevent the growing of bacteria by 99%. By using TiO2 and antibacterial material,we could prepare an environment-friendly interior material successfully.