Browsing by Author "Mustaniemi, Tuomas"

The thesis gives an overview of indoor air pollution sources, health effects, and the detection of the fungal markers in indoor environment. In the experimental part of the thesis, solid phase extraction-liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed for the quantitative analysis of 23 fungal secondary metabolites. The method was used to analyze the condensate water in indoor air from two sick houses in the Southern part of Finland. Furthermore, the practice was used to find other possible fungal marker compounds. The concerns of the indoor air pollution have been steadily increasing for the past couple decades since the prevalence of the irritative symptoms, such as skin, eye and respiratory track problems, that have been increasing without any clear reasoning. These symptoms are therefore being referred as building related symptoms since no other functionality have been discovered to be responsible for those. The general sources that could be linked to the cause of these symptoms are comfort parameters, material and burning related sources, and microbial metabolism products. From the microbes, the fungal species exhibit biggest concerns related to the indoor air quality since the growth of the fungus in the suitable conditions can lead to sizeable emissions of the particles and secondary metabolites which might be toxic, irritating or otherwise unhealthy. The traditional way of detecting the fungal contamination has required highly trained professional who investigates the interiors of the suspected contaminated house with the help of a moisture detector. When the contaminated spot is detected, the expert would conduct a visual inspection, and take a sample of the fungal growth for the microscopic analysis. Since then, methods focusing on the detection of the fungal particles and compounds have been developed. These include the collection of the bioaerosols and the detection of the volatile organic compounds originating from the fungal metabolism. However, there are challenges and limitations on these methods such as dependencies on time, low concentrations, and other pollution sources having similar chemical profiles than the fungal sources. Therefore, diverse ways to analyze the chemical profile of the sick houses is needed. Consequently, in the experimental part of this thesis, the method was developed to analyze fungal secondary metabolites from the condensate of the indoor air. The investigation consisted of the two fungal contaminated sick houses and from the one reference laboratory air sample. The results revealed twelve compounds to be elevated in the indoor air compared to the outdoor air and seven of these compounds were not detected in the reference sample. From these seven compounds, the studied amino acids and caffeine were the most promising fungal marker compounds since these compounds had consistently larger concentrations indoors than outdoors. Furthermore, the precursor ion scan revealed nine more potential marker compounds.