In investigations of more than a hundred buildings in various regions of West Germany the PCB-related indoor air contamination due to PCB-containing permanently elastic materials was examined, generally by sampling the indoor air after prior analysis of the sealant material, The sampling method and analytical procedure used in examining the air makes it possible to achieve a detection limit of 0.1 ng/m3 for each of the six congeners to be determined according to German DIN 51527 within a sampling period of three hours. The verification of both the deposition and the sampling led to reproducible results. Furthermore, the procedure makes it possible to determine the percentage of PCB collected on the filter and that passing the filter. According to these investigations, important factors in the PCB concentration measured in the indoor air are the content of PCB in the sealant material, the type of PCB mixture employed therein and the outdoor temperature.
