Fast detection of biological air contaminants and other methods

Monitoring the microbial load of indoor air is not only important with regard to security aspects, but is also of vital interest with respect to public health and the threat of possibly pathogen microorganisms causing significant economic secondary losses. Therefore a fast and direct identification of microbial air contaminants for a timely warning and for taking adequate controlling measures is needed. Recently a new approach was developed combining the specific coupling of fluorescently labelled antibodies to surface antigens with single particle detection by fluorescence microscopy. For the evaluation of the new device, it was compared with other common test procedures for the measurement and detection of biological air contaminants under defined conditions regarding temperature, relative humidity, air exchange rate and microbiological air contamination. Results on the efficiency and applicability of the new fast detection system are discussed.