Apparently, new carpets contain formaldehyde. I’m not sure why. By-product of manufacture? Anti-mildew agent?
Anyway, if someone wanted to get rid of the formaldehyde, what would be the best method?
It has been suggested that formaldehyde will react with ammonia to produce a powder that can be vacuumed up. This does not seem to make any chemical sense to me as neither ammonia nor formaldehyde is charged and they cannot produce a salt, nor does arrow pushing (by my admittedly very limited skill) result in any likely new compounds. Saturating a carpet with ammonia seems like a pretty drastic step, at any rate.
I suggested repeat steam cleaning to the person who asked me this, but I though I would tap into the vast resources of TSD and see if anyone had a better method.
My closest contact with formaldehyde (formalin?) is in fabric stores. I walk in and my eyes water and nose starts to run, a great excuse to use duct tape for mending and masking tape for hemming. If I buy cloth and the odor still bothers me when I get home, I either wash it or hang it out doors for a while. Either way the odor is gone.
For a carpet I’d guess that a couple of fans and open windows would do the same thing. Might take a couple of days.
Maybe a call to poison control might be helpful, or the manufacturer, or their internet site?
They don’t say what kind of sealant to use, or where to buy it. Varnishes and shellac can seal in formaldehyde in particleboard, but I don’t think you want to use it on your carpet.
You can also obtain carpets that aren’t treated with formaldehyde. I once represented a school district in a workers’ compensation case filed by a teacher who thought she had been injured by formaldehyde fumes from new carpet in her classroom. She was quite dissapointed to learn the carpet had no appreciable formaldehyde on it, because the district had learned its lesson after a prior such complaint and bought only carpet that wasn’t so treated.
Drapes, BTW, as well as most permanently pressed materials, are treated with formaldehyde, I learned.
I think it was on http://www.newscientist.com that I recently read an article claiming that Japanese researchers had found hanging tea bags about the house significantly reduced sick building syndrome. Something about the tea bags absorbing formaldehyde due to their tannic content.
Tried finding the article, but it was last weeks, and their search sucks. Anyone have a link?
certainly some forms of organic matter can adsorb some volatile organic compounds…but it would seem that in this case, there would have to be low levels of formaldehyde or wall-to-wall teabags
The formaldahyde will evaporate in time as the carpet cures. The gases are a chemical reaction of some sorts that has to do with the carpet fibers curing, HCHO or something. What is now frequently recommended for office buildings (mostly to increase worker comfort and avoid complaints from people sensitive to the carpets & cubicle panels off-gassing formaldehyde and other -aldehydes) is called a “bake out”.
Oops! I forgot some somewhat important stuff. If your water heater or furnace, or anything else that sparks, are in the living space, DON’T DO THIS. I was assuming they were in the garage or a ventillated closet, and we all know that when you make an assumption, you make and ASS of U and MTION, or something like that. Who the hell is MTION?
You could just use fans and ventillate really well on hot days and live with the heat. If you have a source of combustion in the same area with the carpet and you build up too much formaldehyde gas it could go boom. This is unlikely, but possible. I don’t know the LEL or HEL for the stuff the carpet’s give off, and I have never heard of any building having a problem with it, but it seems like it could happen if everything went spectacularly wrong, which happens when you assume it won’t.
