Beginning of October 2017 European norm “Assessment of release of dangerous substances – Determination of emissions into indoor air” was published as EN 16516 by European Committee for Standardization (Comité Européen de Normalisation – CEN).

Until now this standard eixisted as drafted standard prEN for public evaluation.

The announcement of this EN on national level is take place until end of January 2018, its implementation unti end of April 2018. At this point of time the national standards deviating content-wise from the standard must be withdrawn.

EN 16516 is to be adapted within the harmonised standards of CE marking of construction products as testing standard. The aim is that from that point of time an European harmonised testing method for evaluation of VOC emissions from construction products is available. Additionally, in the frame of a so-called delegated action, EU commssion is currently working on a new classification system for rating of results of emissions tests. On this base national regulations for marking of construction products in terms of their product emissions can be replaced respectivley harmonsied on an European level.

Currently testing criteria of many legal regulations (like Belgian VOC regulation or AgBB Germany )or of voluntary certification bodies  (like Blue Angel, emidcode, Finnish M1 or eco-INSTITUT-Label) already refer to the requirements of EN 16516.

The testing method “Assessment of release of release of dangerous substances – Determination of emissions into indoor air” Das Prüfverfahren zur “Bewertung der Freisetzung gefährlicher Stoffe – Bestimmungen der Emissionen in der Innenraumluft” refer to volatile organic compounds (VOC), semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOC) and volatile aldehydes. The method is based on test chamber measurements with subsequent analysis of compounds per GC-MS or HPLC.

Go to standard on the site of CEN