Indicators of Mold Growth in Indoor Environments

The following investigation stems from the idea of using metabolic byproducts produced by mold as indicators of its presence in indoor environments in place of investigating airborne fungi by traditional particulate sampling techniques. VOCs and carbon dioxide are both examined in order to evaluate their usefulness as possible metabolic indicators of mold growth. A specially designed purge and trap laboratory setup was built and operated for the study of molds growing on specific media. Key variables for the operation of the apparatus include sampling time and sampling flow rate as well as other environmental conditions such as temperature. Carbon dioxide serves as a good marker for fungal activity, but is difficult to attribute to mold growth when studying non-closed loop systems. Many VOCs were collected but detection limits were often too high for the quantities collected.