Vorkommen und Verteilung von mittel- und schwerflüchtigen Schadstoffen in Innenräumen

Abstract

Topics of this dissertation are the occurrence and distribution of semivolatile and particulate harmful substances in indoor environment. The common property of these substances is their low volatility resulting in the build-up of new emission sources in burdened rooms.Primary sources of semivolatile and particulate organic substances might be building materials, residues from pest controls, furniture or open fires. Commonly occurring groups of substances were chosen for the evaluation of their distribution and ranges of burden levels in different indoor environments in order to show which substance groups might be probably determined in different kinds of buildings or rooms.The substance groups examined for this dissertation are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCN), phthalates and miscellanous pesticides.Another important topic for the determination of substance burdens on surfaces is taking samples from surfaces in a correct manner in order to investigate the loaded substances without loss. For evaluating efficient methods of taking samples, three selected types of surfaces (glass, coated plywood and uncoated plywood) were treated with chlorpyriphos-ethyl, pyrethrum, piperonyl butoxide and PAH. The loaded surfaces were wiped with different kinds of cloth, the cloths being analysed subsequently.Besides, material samples to defined depths were taken from both types of plywood in order to investigate the substance amounts migrated into the material related to those taken by wipe samples. Furtherto, decay curves were determined by sampling surfaces after defined time periods from a set of equally treated surfaces. Thus, the half-times of the substances while storage of the loaded surfaces under indoor conditions were estimated. As a result, rather long estimated half-times resulted for the examinated substances; even for pyrethrum which commonly is said to decay within a very short time.