Assessment of the 2-Hour Desiccator Test for Formaldehyde Release from Particleboard

The 2-hour desiccator test is the most widely used method, in the United States and Canada, for the evaluation of particleboard in terms of formaldehyde emissions. Nonetheless, some of the features of the method and individual steps included in it remain to be assessed. In this work we investigate the following paramaters: 1) The potential sources of error, by determining the reproducibility of the board characteristics, formaldehyde sorption in the water, and the analysis of the water. 2) The effect of preconditioning of particleboard as supplied, and the cut test specimens, on the formaldehyde release. 3) The correlation between the 2-hour desiccator method and the jar method developed in our laboratory. 4) The effect of temperature on the results. We found that the formaldehyde sorption in the water and the analysis of the water were indeed reproducible. The sometimes observed difference between presumably identical boards originates in the non-identicalness of the boards. Preconditioning of particleboard before cutting test specimens had no effect on results, while preconditioning of the cut test specimens had a pronounced effect on the observed formaldehyde release. The temperature effect was similar to those reported previously, namely, the desiccator values doubled when the temperature of test was increased from 23?C to 33?C. Two different techniques were used to assess the desiccator test; the desiccator method itself and a simplified method (jar test) with the same principles but different sample size, container size, and water quantity.

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