THE IDENTIFICATION OF POLAR ORGANIC-COMPOUNDS FOUND IN CONSUMER PRODUCTS AND THEIR TOXICOLOGICAL PROPERTIES

Exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the indoor environmen t has received substantial research attention in the past several year s, with the goal of better understanding the impact of such exposures on human health and wellbeing. Many VOCs can arise from consumer produ cts used within the indoor environment. The VOCs emitted from five rep resentative consumer products were collected onto Tenax-GC and subject ed to thermal desorption and analysis by gas chromatography, in combin ation with low-resolution mass spectrometry (MS), high-resolution MS, and matrix-isolation Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for struc tural characterization. An emphasis was placed on the polar organic co mpounds often used to provide fragrance in these products. The structu res of a number of these compounds were confirmed and an electronic li terature search was carried out on them to determine any known toxic p roperties. The search revealed that many of the VOCs possess toxic pro perties when studied at acute, relatively high-level exposures. In add ition, toxic effects were reported for a few of the chemicals, such as benzaldehyde, alpha-terpineol, benzyl acetate, and ethanol, at relati vely low dose levels of 9-14 mg/kg, In general, the data were unclear as to the effect of chronic, low-level exposures. The widespread use o f such chemicals suggests that the health effects of chronic exposures need to be determined. Validated analytical methods for the quantitat ive characterization of polar organic compounds at low concentrations will be required to make such work possible.