Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are organic chemical compounds of 15 or less carbon atoms that have a high
vapour pressure (> 10 hPa) at ambient temperature (20°C). VOCs are direct and indirect greenhouse gases
and precursors of ozone and aerosols, which both contribute to the radiative forcing.
Accordingly, long-term, accurate, worldwide measurements of VOCs are essential to
understand climate change and to address its effects. Stable traceable references
with a low uncertainty along with well-defined measuring methods are therefore
indispensable for measuring reliably short and long-term amount-of-substance
fractions of VOCs.
The EMPIR project 'Metrology for climate relevant volatiles organic compounds'
(MetClimVOC) aims to improve the quality of reference gas standards for priority
oxygenated VOCs, terpenes and halogenated VOCs, highly focusing on the dissemination
of the standards to the field. Moreover, the measurement techniques will be validated
within the framework of the project to ensure traceable measurements and to provide
realistic and complete uncertainty budgets of the measurements.