How fast do construction materials for indoor use act as VOC sinks?

Most building products do not only act as primary emission sources for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) but also as sinks and secondary sources. The sink behaviour of a carpet tile and a wood based ceiling panel was examined by a real-scale experiment. A single VOC event in a real room was provoked by injection of a VOC mixture into the incoming pipe of the HVAC system. A carpet tile and a ceiling panel were stored in the contaminated room. After one day these samples were removed and their VOC emissions were examined by an emission test chamber experiment (ETC) and by thermal extraction (TE).