ASTM International

Standard Test Method for Determination of Volatile Organic Compounds Emitted from Carpet using a Specific Sorbent Tube and Thermal Desorption / Gas Chromatography
 N D7339

Annotation

This test method describes an analytical procedure for identifying and quantifying the masses of individual volatile organic compounds (individual VOCs or IVOCs) that are emitted into a flow of air from carpet specimens and collected on sorbent sampling tubes during emissions testing.

This test method will be used in conjunction with a standard practice for sampling and preparing carpet specimens for emissions testing. If a specific chamber practice is not available for the carpet specimens, this standard test method should be used in conjunction with approved standard practices for emissions testing and sample preparation.

When used in conjunction with standard practices for carpet specimen preparation and collection of vapor-phase emissions , this test method will provide a standardized means of determining the levels of IVOC in the exhaust stream of the emissions test chamber/cell. If this test method is used with a reliable practice for emissions testing, these IVOC levels can be used to determine the emission rate from a unit quantity (usually surface area) of the sample material under test.

VOCs in the exhaust stream of an emissions test device are collected on thermal desorption tubes packed with a specific combination of sorbents using active (pumped) sampling. (See Practice D6196 for a more general description of vapor collection using pumped sampling onto sorbent tubes). The samples are analyzed by thermal desorption (TD) with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry detection (GC/MS) and/or flame ionization detection (FID) depending upon the requirements of the specific materials emissions testing/ certification protocol.