Variation of Indoor Air Quality in a New Apartment Building by Bake-Out

Bake-out was executed against the newly constructed apartment buildings using two methods to find out the effect of improvement on the indoor air quality and identify the concentration changes in the indoor air by the bake-out method for 3 months after occupancy. From two methods of bake-out executed before occupying, we did not find any reduction effect on the hazardous substances in the indoor air. The concentration of the hazardous substances in the indoor air tended to increase due to the sink effect, but it turned to decrease due to enough ventilation by desorption. The extent of adsorption depends on hazardous substances, building materials and furniture. The longer the period of bake-out is noticed when the formaldehyde concentration was higher than that from the total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) because of sink effect. Therefore TVOCs had more reducing effect on the concentration of indoor air hazardous substances than the formaldehyde. The concentration level of indoor air contamination materials could be reduced from the re-desorption of hazardous materials through a sufficient duration of ventilation although bake-out has raised the concentration level of indoor air contamination materials by the adsorption effect for a short period of time.