Eye irritation caused by formaldehyde as an indoor air pollution--a controlled human exposure experiment

The present study focuses on health assessment of wood based panels which are widely used in interior decoration practices over the recent years in China. Formaldehyde has been identified as chemical indicator of (IAO) and an indoor air pollutant. To test its health effects experiment was undertaken.

A small environmental test chamber (60/L) was used as the generator of emission gas from new panels, and was operating at a temperature of 22.7 +/- 0.6 degrees C and a humidity of 44.4 +/- 2.5% with an air exchange rate of 1.0 +/- 0.15 h-1. On the three experimental days the values of product loading in chamber were 4, 2 and 6 m2/m3, respectively. Eight people were selected randomly from the students and employees of Wuhan Health and Anti-epidemic Station as subjects, with an average age of 21.9 +/- 5.9 years, and a gender ratio of 1:1, and two of them were smokers (one male and one female). The subjects' eyes were exposed to formaldehyde through a pair of goggles. Each goggle had its flow inlet and outlet, and connected to chamber exhaust of emission gas and to an exhaust from the room. The exposure time was very short, just 5 minutes and the formaldehyde doses were at 1.65 +/- 0.01, 2.99 +/- 0.07 and 4.31 +/- 0.02 ppm. A 60-mm linear visual analogue rating scales was used to measure the intensity of sensory eye irritation and a video tape recorder was used to record eye blinking frequency.

The results demonstrated that tests of sensory eye irritation and eye blinking can be used for materials testing, and that a dose-effect as well as a time-variance of the effect can be measured.

The tests showed that eye irritation was perceived at all of the three levels.