Airborne Fungi in Buildings of Nakhon Ratchasima College
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Abstract
The indoor building environments have become a rising concern about indoor air quality (IAQ) impacting people health. This study examined viable airborne fungi from 13 sampling sites in various buildings of Nakhon Ratchasima College, Thailand, between July and August 2020. In order to investigate fungal diversity and amount of fungi contaminated in the indoor air and determine the correlation of the findings with environmental factors such as room temperature and relative humidity as well as the number of attendants. An open plate technique was used as a sampling method. Totally 160 samples of potato dextrose agar (PDA) plates were carried for 1 hour and twice a day. Standard plate count was used to quantify colony counts and fungal concentrations. Results showed the highest fungal concentration was found in the anatomy laboratory. The lowest fungal concentration was found in the office (eighth floor). Both sampling sites were classified by index of microbial air contamination (IMA) level as very good and good respectively. Eight fungal genera were identified. The dominant genera were Cladosporium and Aspergillus, followed by Penicillium, Fusarium, Alternaria, Rhizopus, Curvularia and Mucor. Statistical analysis based on Pearson’s correlation revealed the number of attendances had low negative correlation (r = -0.374) with the fungal concentrations (r = -0.374). Whereas relative humidity and room temperature had no correlation (r = -0.002 and -0.025 respectively). This study provides a profile of airborne fungi which benefit on indoor air quality assessments as fungal background data.
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