Multivariate evaluation of VOCs in buildings where people with non-specific building-related symptoms perceive health problems and in buildings where they do not

Abstract

The study showed that there was an identifiable systematic difference in the collected VOC data between buildings causing and not causing problems for people with non-specific building-related symptoms (also called sick building syndrome, SBS). This is an important indication that even such volatile organic compounds that can be sampled by commonly used adsorbents are of importance for the presence of such symptoms. By coordination of procedures for sampling and analysis of VOCs in buildings between laboratories, to get large datasets and more general models, the method can become a useful diagnostic measure in evaluating indoor air and to identify chemical compounds and sources that contribute to SBS problems.

The correlations between oxidative stress markers and indoor volatile organic compounds among the general population in Ansan and Incheon cities, Korea

“…Indoor VOC have been regarded as one of the hazardous environmental chemicals in office buildings, and have been linked to the sick building syndrome 5,6 . Sick house syndrome, in like manner to the sick building syndrome, has received increasing attention in Japan and Korea where many high-rise apartments are being built in large cities [7][8][9][10][11][12] .…”

Differentiation of air samples with and without microbial volatile organic compounds by aspiration ion mobility spectrometry and semiconductor sensors

“…Multivariate methods including principles of PCA have been described elsewhere [19]. Detector responses were used as variables.…”

“…R 2 and Q 2 are diagnostic tools for evaluation of the goodness of the model. R 2 describes the goodness of the fit and Q 2 describes the goodness of the predictive properties of the model [19]. Sampling times have been described as a number after the chamber symbol (i.e.…”

“…This way multivariate methods can help in the classification of the contaminated and clean buildings. Principles of multivariate methods have been described by Sunesson et al [19].…”

“…Samples were collected from mould contaminated rooms and clean rooms and with MVDA it was possible to classify rooms according to the differences in VOC profiles of indoor air and further in mould growth. Sunesson et al [19] used MVDA for studying indoor air impurity conditions of two types of buildings. Ones where inhabitants had suffered from building related illnesses and others where no symptoms had been experienced.…”