Determination of the most reliable method for the evaluation of formaldehyde emissions from wood-based panels produced by an Italian leading company in the furniture sector

For wood-based panels, is possible to apply two different testing methodologies for formaldehyde emissions (gas analysis (GA) method and chamber method), respectively, regulated by UNI EN717-2:1996 and UNI EN717-1:2004; the analysis procedures have many differences, with regard to the equipment, the dimensions of samples and the testing environment parameters (temperature and relative humidity). The aim was to identify the most reliable method, by evaluating the technical results obtained, as well as by making a supporting statistical analysis aimed at the definition of the agreement degree between the two methodologies. In detail, we individuated the nine most used wood-based panels by a kitchens producer and we performed two different types of analysis: the GA method and chamber method. As properly described in this paper, the chamber method has a higher reliability due to the more realistic environmental testing conditions; moreover, we have demonstrated a low correlation between the two methodologies.