Study of Odours Coming Out of Polyurethane Flexible Foam Mattresses

Quality of life in Western populations is becoming an ever-growing concern. Higher demands are made in regard to for example comfort and safety. Low emissions of volatile organic compounds and odour criteria have become key performance requirements in most applications. To address this issue, the entire supply chain, from producers to end-users attempts to find ways and means to identify, understand and reduce unexpected emissions and odours. Standard test methods have been developed for the evaluation of a wide range of product/materials emissions. A wide variety of experimental techniques as well as instrumental methods have been used for the sampling and the identification/quantification of volatile components emitted by materials. Work reported here includes the sensory and chemical evaluation of volatiles at low concentration levels (usually in the ppm or even the ppb range). This paper describes the work conducted by EUROPUR (European Association of Flexible Polyurethane Foam Block Manufacturers) for the identification of odour emanating from PU samples. The data shown in this work gives some evidence for the potential contribution of very minor compounds emitted by PU samples to the odour. GC-MS-olfactometry was used to determine which components of the complex mixture of VOCs were primarily responsible for the perceived odour.