UC San Diego

Volatile organic compounds, VOCs, in indoor air have been implicated in health effects that result from poor air quality, but to date there are have been but few attempts to quantify the effect of VOCs on humans. We have determined eye irritation thresholds, nasal pungency thresholds, and odor detection thresholds on humans for a series of VOCs containing various functional groups. The major aim of the project was to analyse the threshold data that we have obtained in order to construct equations that could be used to predict further values of thresholds for VOCs known to be present in indoor air.