The Contamination of Volatile Substances before and after Decoration in a Supermarket in Guangzhou City

Objective To investigate the contamination of volatile substances before and after decoration in a supermarket and its changing trend, to find out the affect factors on indoor air pollutants.

Methods Detecting the concentration of formaldehyde, benzene, toluene, xylene and total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) just before, soon after and 6 months after decoration; comparing the concentration of organic compounds at different period of time.

Results The concentration of formaldehyde was lower than the national standard limits before decoration. The highest levels of formaldehyde, benzene, toluene, xylene and TVOC appeared soon after the decoration, and the rates over the national standard limits were 22.2%, 55.6%, 55.6% for formaldehyde, toluene and TVOC, respectively. The average concentration of formaldehyde appeared before, soon after and six months after decoration was 0.039 mg/m³, 0.083 mg/m³ and 0.054 mg/m³ (P < 0.001), respectively. The concentrations of toluene and TVOC soon after decoration were significantly higher than those 6 months after decoration (P < 0.05). However, there were no statistically significant differences of benzene and xylene between the two periods (P > 0.05).

Conclusion The main source of indoor air volatile substances was from decoration and the concentration of them would decrease gradually with the passage of time.