Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)

Have you ever walked into a house during the holidays and smelled that pine tree smell? That smell is from naturally occurring volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. In fact, the “Smoky” Mountains, known for their famous blue smoke, is a combination of water mist and volatile organic compounds! While most VOCs are naturally produced, harmful volatile organic compounds are more & more often not produced from nature. So where are the dangerous VOCs that we, as humans, produce?

Volatile Organic Compounds sources other than those from nature

Volatile organic compounds are most often a by-product of many manufacturing, drying, cleaning, and coating processes. Printing, converting (such as paper and other materials), painting, and many cleaning processes give off VOCs. These volatile organic compounds must be controlled because VOCs are known to create health hazards in indoor space.

There have been efforts to reduce the volume of volatile organic compounds that evaporate (off-gas) from building materials and furniture used in the construction and in the furnishing of our homes and offices. In addition, organic compounds are found in our household cleaners, perfume, makeup, dry cleaning fluid, paints, lacquers, varnishes, hobby supplies, and in the glues that bond plywood and other common building materials.

These organic compounds are called “volatile” organic compounds when they have a high vapor pressure at ordinary room temperature.

In our world at large, the atmosphere and our health are adversely affected by volatile organic compounds. VOCs originate from crude oil which has been transformed into lighter organic products that become vapor at atmospheric conditions. A list of common hydrocarbon compounds (organic chemical compounds composed of only carbon (C) and hydrogen (H)) include:

Greenhouse gasses and depletion of the ozone layer are results of manmade volatile organic compounds. Methane, the most common fuel gas, is also released in large quantities from coal mines and will stay in the atmosphere much longer than most greenhouse gasses. At the same time, especially during summer months, VOCs react with NOx (oxides of nitrogen) via sunlight to form ground level ozone, a major contributor to smog and respiratory stress.

Certain diseases such as liver damage, anemia, leukemia, and damage to the central nervous system increase with exposure to volatile organic compounds. Transportation and industry are the leading contributors to man-made VOCs in our atmosphere. It is for these reasons our engineers continue to improve on the cost-effective systems to convert volatile organic compounds to harmless compounds or to recover these VOCs for re-use rather than allowing them to end up in our air.