Furniture Testing

Xu, Baoping, et al. Science of The Total Environment 819 (2022): 153126.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor materials and products are one of the main factors affecting air quality and human health. Compared with building materials and wooden furniture, the internal structure of leather furniture is more complex, and the emission surface is uneven. Although the market share of leather furniture is relatively high, there is relatively little research on this type of furniture.

The study used the regional traverse method to measure three key parameters of volatile organic compound emissions from typical double-layer leather furniture: the initial releasable concentration, the diffusion coefficient, and the partition coefficient. A series of experiments were conducted in a 1 m³ indoor environment to investigate the volatile organic compound emissions from leather sofas under different conditions.

Zemitis, J., and A. Borodinecs. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. Vol. 290. No. 1. IOP Publishing, 2019.

To analyze the moisture absorption properties of furniture, 11 furniture samples were selected. These samples were made of plywood materials, with two larger faces or all faces laminated. They are one of the most common materials used for tables or shelves in homes or schools. During the experiment, the analyzed samples were placed in a closed climate chamber with no air exchange rate, and the increase in humidity and heat was controlled. The moisture content of the indoor air was measured using a humidity recorder, and the sample materials were weighed periodically. The weighing data of the measurement samples were recorded every few days. For each measurement group, five measurements were made to determine the average and root mean square error.

To evaluate the moisture absorption of the materials, a scale with the following parameters was used: weighing range from 0.02 g to 6 kg. To evaluate the moisture resistance of heavy wooden structures, the air temperature in the climate chamber was maintained in the range of +23.0 °C± 2 °C, and the relative humidity was maintained at 60%±5%. All measurements were recorded using a HOBO U12-013 data logger to record temperature and relative humidity. The measurement limits and accuracy levels of the instrument are as follows: temperature: -20 °C to +70 °C ±0.35 °C, relative humidity: 5% to 95% ±2.5%.

Nkabinde, Sylvia N., et al. Science of The Total Environment 622 (2018): 275-281.

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are composed of various brominated compounds, including polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), total hexabromocyclododecane (T-HBCDD), tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), and "new or alternative" brominated flame retardants (NBFRs). These chemicals are intentionally added to consumer products with the overall goal of preventing fire by suppressing the burning process of materials. PBDEs have been widely used and marketed as mixtures of penta-, octa-, and deca-brominated diphenyl ethers, and have been applied to electrical and electronic equipment as well as furniture products. It has been reported that when BFRs are added as additives to products, they tend to diffuse from the treated product surfaces and subsequently released into the environment. Furthermore, pentabromodiphenyl ether, octabromodiphenyl ether, and other brominated diphenyl ethers have been found to be bioaccumulative, persistent, and have endocrine-disrupting properties.

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis was used to measure the elemental bromine content in office furniture and electronic products, which is an initial indication of the possible presence of brominated flame retardants. To investigate the potential presence of brominated flame retardants, a total of 21 dust samples were collected from the surfaces of electronic devices and office furniture, and analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).