Indoor environment factor · measured in ng/m³
Flame retardants
Also: brominated flame retardants, organophosphate flame retardants, PBDE, flame retardant
Substances added to furniture foam, electronics, insulation and textiles to slow ignition. Most are blended into the material rather than bound to it, so they migrate out over the product's life and are found in indoor air and, far more, in house dust.
What it is
Flame retardants are required by fire safety rules and are therefore present, in quantity, in the furnishings of most dwellings. They are chosen for thermal stability, which is also what makes them persist in the environment and in the body.
Their indoor behaviour is that of a heavy semi-volatile compound. Very little is in the gas phase at any moment; most is attached to particles and to settled dust, and the dust is the reservoir. Concentrations correlate with the amount of upholstered furniture, electronics and insulation in the room rather than with anything about ventilation, and small children take up more than adults because of contact with floors.
The family has been replaced repeatedly as individual members were restricted — brominated diphenyl ethers giving way to organophosphate esters and others — which is why measurements from different decades describe different mixtures under one name.
What the studies report
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | other 0.044 | — · dwelling | differential determination of plasticizers and organophosphorus flame retardants in the indoor air of 21 dwellings, with the settled dust of the same homes measured alongside | F-1476 Differential determination of plasticizers and organophospho… (2015) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Flame retardants. Coridum Knowledge G-0202, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0202/