Chemical composition of household malodours – an overview

Abstract

Modern lifestyles create plentiful opportunities for malodour generation and proliferation. A domestic dwelling provides a number of micro‐environments in which a range of malodour‐producing activities such as laundry, food preparation and necessary bodily functions take place. With a significant proportion of time spent indoors, there is increasing exposure to these micro‐environments. Knowledge of the chemical composition and, in particular, the key malodour components present in these situations, is crucial to understand how to limit their impact. This is a multi‐disciplinary undertaking, encompassing analytical measurements, physical–organic chemistry, biology and sensory evaluation. As a consequence information can be dispersed over a number of sources in the literature and is not always readily recognizable as malodour related. The current review addresses this situation, examining the state of knowledge of household malodour composition, covering in detail areas such as food preparation and disposal, indoor air concentrations and building emissions, and body effluents. Examples to illustrate these areas are presented and discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Impact of Indoor Malodor: Historical Perspective, Modern Challenges, Negative Effects, and Approaches for Mitigation

“…Over time, these VOC will become absorbed by the porous surfaces in homes such as carpets, soft furnishings, curtains, wall paper and even the grout between tiles. The combination of the bouquet of VOC present in households imparts each home with its own unique smell [16].…”

“…Acidic odors include short chain fatty acids such as isovaleric acid, heptanoic acid and basic odors include amines such as ammonia, butyl amine, and trimethyl amine. Both types of neutralizable MOVOC are constituents of household odors such as food waste odors, and human odors [16]. Buffer systems used in spray air freshening products to neutralize odors may include for example, citrate or carbonate buffers.…”

“…Unsaturated aldehydes are MOVOC components of household odors that are derived from the oxidation of skin oils or from oxidation of lipids during cooking [16,85,86]. Amine-functional polymers are known to bind with and capture aldehydes (including formaldehyde) through the formation of imine bonds [87,88], and have been used in air freshening products to bind with odors (patent US 9273427).…”

Candles from Soybean Seed Oil Extract

“…Different types of pollutants occur indoors under atmospheric conditions due to sources within or from the external environments. Most pollutants has negative consequences that are capable of causing various complications and nuisance [4][5][6][7]. Some pollutants can also be inform of solid waste materials which has to be removed either by physical or chemical means or by recycling by conversion into useful materials [8,9,10,11].…”

Odor in textiles: A review of evaluation methods, fabric characteristics, and odor control technologies

“…grease, pesticides, animals). 3 Laundering may remove malodors, often replacing them with fresh and fragrant odors present in detergent and laundry auxiliaries. However, the laundering process can become another source of textile malodor.…”