Reprinted with permission from Environmental Laboratory Washington Report.
Prism Analytical Technologies Inc., a indoor air quality lab based in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., has developed an improved procedure for testing IAQ environments for active mold growth.
PATI’s MoldScan™ technique relies on traditional environmental analysis of microbial volatile organic compounds to determine the existence and extent of indoor mold growth, which has been linked to a number of illnesses.
Numerous studies have found that mold can lead to unsafe indoor air environments, producing severe allergic reactions and respiratory irritation, exacerbating asthma and other respiratory ailments and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage and insurance claims every year.
In the past, mold testing was conducted primarily by microbiological labs using culture plates and spore traps instead of traditional environmental chemistry equipment and procedures.
PATI’s approach differs substantially because it relies on the detection of MVOCs — gas compounds emitted from actively growing mold. By using thermal desorption methods on a gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer, the lab can detect MVOC concentrations as low as 90 parts per trillion.
Based upon a sample’s MVOC concentration, the lab can determine the extent of mold growth in the area sampled.
The company, which was founded in 1992, developed the technique several years ago, but waited to put it on the market until last year.
"We resisted the urge to rush a product to market and instead, embarked on a quest to develop nondisruptive technology that allows us to accurately and efficiently identify the culprits — compounds that are produced by actively grow-ing mold, are not produced by bacteria and have few
secondary sources," said Randall Fike, the company’s chief technical officer.
The company spent years studying the different MVOCs and their possible sources. The current methodology focuses on 21 specific MVOCs selected because of their unique relation to mold. While there are hundreds of compounds that derive from off-gassing in an indoor environment, most of those can be traced back to nonmold sources, such as computers, garbage, organic materials and residential or commercial chemicals.
Most of the MVOCs targeted by MoldScan™ cannot be derived from other sources, the company said. Those that can be tracked to another source are usually present with other specific compounds.
If those compounds are not present, the MVOC can be traced to mold.
Company president Lester Keepper told ELWR that the most recent version of the technique fared better than all its major competitors in blind-test studies conducted by an outside consulting firm, which he could not divulge. The main reason, he said, was PATI’s ability to detect such low concentrations of MVOCs.
Clients using the testing service receive a sample vial that must be connected to a monitoring pump for about 3˝ hours. The samples are analyzed at PATI’s Mt. Pleasant lab, and results are reported in three to five business days.
The test cost is $180, making it pricier than some IAQ mold testing services. However, he said the type of information gleaned from a MoldScan™ test is different than what is learned from a microbiological lab test. MoldScan™ will tell a client if there is active mold growth, while microbiological tests relying on spore traps cannot determine if spores are from current or former mold growth.
Microbiological tests using culture plates can identify the species of mold — MoldScan™ does not — but it usually requires physical destruction of property because mold inspectors must punch holes in walls, ceilings and floors to locate and collect mold samples, none of which is necessary using MoldScan™, Keepper said.
Keepper said the high cost has kept demand low for the test in typical residential property transactions. However, that market is heating up, he said.
Even though MoldScan™ does not identify mold species, there are many reasons why a client would want to remove the mold regardless of its type. All types of mold produce and spread spores and MVOCs, both of which can cause a variety of adverse health effects, Keepper said.
The company is actively involved with research groups conducting long-term studies of the health impacts of mold. The company compiles information on reported illness symptoms and compares that data to the levels of the targeted MVOCs detected in samples.
This database is constantly updated and gives the company a good understanding of the health effects related to varying levels of mold growth. Based upon that data, the company can help its clients decide whether full-scale remediation is needed or if mold levels are low enough not to cause a problem.
But the company asserts that its mold test should not be used exclusively to come to these conclusions.
"We are just another tool in the toolbox," Keepper said. "No one should ever rely on just one piece of data to make those decisions."
Reprinted with permission from Environmental Laboratory Washington Report copyright 2003 by LRP Publications, P.O. Box 24668, West Palm Beach, FL 33416-4668. All rights reserved. For more information on these or any of our other publications, please call 1-800-341-7874 or visit us on the web at www.lrp.com/store.