Interior air pollution in automotive cabins by volatile organic compounds diffusing from interior materials: I. Survey of 101 types of Japanese domestically produced cars for private use

The types and concentrations of organic compounds in the interior air of 101 different types of Japanese domestically produced private-use cars were examined. All the vehicles had been registered in the summer season as new cars and were less than 3 years old. The airborne compounds in the cabins were collected for 24h under static condition with the engine stopped and the windows, doors and vents closed. A total of 275 organic compounds, including many aliphatic hydrocarbons and aromatic hydrocarbons, were identified, and 242 of them could be quantitated for each cabin. The sum of the concentrations of 241 compounds excluding formaldehyde was approximately 600 mu g(.)m(-3) as a median, ranging from 136 to 39681,mu g(.)m(-3) for the tested cars. The findings demonstrated that the air in the cabin of these cars was contaminated by high concentrations of a large variety of organic compound diffusing from the interior materials.