The emission and presence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the indoor air of houses and factories has been a growing topic of debate in the industry and related research fields. Given the extended times people in modern society spend indoors, monitoring VOCs is crucial due to the associated potential health hazards, with formaldehyde being particularly noteworthy. Wood and wood-based panels (WBPs) (the latter constituting a significant segment of the wood-transforming industry, being widely used in furniture, construction, and other applications) are known sources for the emission of VOCs to indoor air. In the case of the WBPs, the emission of VOCs depends on the type and species of wood, together with industrial processing and addition of additives. This review integrates perspectives on the production processes associated with WBPs, together with the evolving global regulations, and thoroughly examines VOC sources associated with WBPs, health risks from exposure, and current analytical methods utilized for VOC detection. It comprises an overview of the WBP industry, providing relevant definitions, descriptions of manufacturing processes and adhesive use, analysis of legal constraints, and explanations of VOC source identification and describing analysis techniques utilized for VOCs in WBPs.

This work presents the electrochemical determination of cholecalciferol (Vitamin D₃) in water-organic mixtures using a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) and commercial screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs). The electrocatalytic behavior of Vitamin D₃ on the surface of the working electrode produced a well-defined oxidation peak at +0.95 V (vs. Ag|AgCl, 3.0 mol L⁻¹) and +0.7 V (vs. Ag-SPCE pseudo-reference electrode) for the GCE and SPCE, respectively, in 0.1 M LiClO₄ prepared in 50% ethanol. The nature of the organic solvent needed for the solubilization of Vitamin D₃ was evaluated, together with the concentration of the supporting electrolyte, the ratio of the water-organic mixture, the voltametric parameters for the cyclic voltammetry (CV), and square-wave voltammetry (SWV) analyses. Under the optimized conditions, a linear correlation between the anodic peak current and the concentration of Vitamin D₃ was obtained over the range of 0.47 to 123 µmol L⁻¹ and 59.4 to 1651 µmol L⁻¹ for the GCE and SPCE, respectively. The determined limits of detection (LOD) were 0.17 (GCE) and 19.4 µmol L⁻¹ (SPCE). The methodology was successfully applied to commercial supplement tablets of Vitamin D₃. Additionally, this work shows the possibility of using non-modified GCE and SPCE for routine analysis of Vitamin D₃.

This work presents a novel application of gas-diffusion microextraction (GDME) for the extraction and identification of volatile carbonyl compounds from a dry-process fibreboard (MDF) by combining high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection (HPLC–DAD) and mass spectrometry (MS). GDME is a simple, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly technique that allows the simultaneous extraction and derivatization with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH) of selected volatiles. The extraction conditions were optimized using design of experiments through a 2⁴ full fractional design followed by a Box–Behnken design, resulting in 35 min of extraction at 45 °C using 500 µL of DNPH 0.15%. The analysis of commercial MDF samples with different characteristics, such as thickness or colour, showed a distinct emission profile of volatile carbonyls. The principal emitting compounds found were formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acetone, butanal, pentanal, hexanal, heptanal, octanal, and nonanal. A total of 25 compounds were identified using MS, including saturated and unsaturated aldehydes, ketones, dicarbonyls, and benzaldehyde-derivatives. This method can be a valuable tool for the qualitative evaluation of VOCs released from wood-based panels and for the assessment of indoor-air quality.