Improved quality of life has led to a growing demand for better indoor air quality (IAQ). Buildings are becoming more airtight and insulated in order to minimize energy consumption. The importance of both energy conservation and IAQ improvement has been recognized and addressed by many studies. Bake-out is the process of using indoor heating to remove volatile compounds present in building materials and furnishings so that they can be vented out into the atmosphere. Indiscriminate use of heating to increase the surface temperature of materials during this process can result in significant loss of energy. Therefore, energy-efficient bake-out should be performed by considering both the floor temperature and the emission amount of pollutants. This study aims to investigate an effective and economical bake-out implementation strategy via experimentation and computational fluid dynamics analysis. The results showed weak direct correlation between the heating energy consumption and the amount of pollutants emitted. The study also highlights the passive option of installing sorptive building materials for improving IAQ economically.
Keywords: bake-out; computational fluid dynamics; floor heating system; indoor air quality; toluene.