A STUDY ON THE VOCS EMISSION RATES OF HOME ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES

Home electrical appliances release hazardous chemical substances produced by the effects of heatingduring their operation. The present study investigated the emission rates of chemical substances onhome electrical appliances such as microwave ovens, vacuum cleaners, electric heaters, electricblankets, multimedia players, electronic dictionaries, MD players and notebook PCs.The VOCs emission rates of comparatively small products were measured using a small-scaleenvironmental chamber with a volume of 0.065 [m3]. Toluene was found to be emitted from all samples,at rates of 0.15 to 9.5 [?g/h?unit]. In a previous study, increased chemical substance emission rateswere detected during the operation of electrical space heaters, but in the present study no suchincrease was detected in any of the electrical appliances studied, except for the notebook PC.For comparatively large products, measurements were conducted using a large-scale environmentalchamber with a volume of 4.98 [m3]. The VOCs concentrations in this chamber rose during operationfor all products. The emission rates of total VOCs ranged from 9.3 to 2600 [?g/h?unit]. Microwaveovens revealed a markedly large emission rate of 2600[?g/h?unit] after 45 minutes of operation.