Globally there are increasing requirements of car manufacturers and laws for lower emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in vehicle interiors. VDA 278 method describes thermal desorption analysis of organic emissions for the characterization of non-metallic materials for automobiles. VDA278 method is a semi-quantitative method to characterize VOCs. VOCs are separated by GC and detected by MS. However measured value with a 15 % deviation is normally achieved within the laboratory and no generally valid precision value is given according to VDA278 recommendation. Round robin among 19 laboratories had standard deviations for VOC around 31-36%. Dow is determined to innovate polyurethane (PU) science to meet customer needs. In order to compare and improve PU formulations, it is critical to understand the measurement error of the implemented method in our lab. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is applied to determine the means of various groups and All-Pairs Tukey-Kramer method is used to compare the means. The standard error of means represents the total measurement error of VDA-278 method, which is attributed to sample, instrument and detection variation. Baseline variability of the implemented method is established as 33 ppm at 95% confidence level. We also evaluate the impact of testing date, mixing mode, and formulation index on the total VOC content. Dow’s new formulation with renewable content shows a 50% reduction in VOC comparing to an incumbent formulation.

Thermal desorption coupled gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of low emission polyurethane foam for automobile applications

2019 Fall National Meeting

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