Survey and risk assessment of VOCs in PU foam products

This project studied the emission (off-gassing) of chemical substances from consumer products consisting of PU foam and evaluated the potential health risks caused by the substances emitted from selected PU foam products.

Survey of chemical substances in consumer products No. 182, 2020

A previous Danish EPA survey project on PU foam products (squishy toys) showed that emissions of cer-tain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) may consti-tute a health risk. As a result, this project investigated other products made of PUR foam like mattresses and pillows. Within the project, 20 products were analyzed, of these 10 are products for baby’s and 10 are products for grown up .These products were analyzed for their content of flame retardants and phthalates as these are already regulated, additionally the products emission and volatile organic compounds were analyzed. Re-sults showed that no products violated the limit values for flame retardants and phthalates but one baby mat-tress emitted large concentrations of dimethylforma-mide which also was found in squishy toys, and is therefore no longer sold to Danish consumers.

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