Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) can be significantly deteriorated by high levels of bioaerosols that may cause adverse health effects in building occupants. There is no standard method for the quantification of this kind of pollutants and several protocols and sampling devices are used. The aim of this work was to compare three commonly used portable air samplers available in the market. DUO SAS SUPER 360, SAMPL'AIR and SPIN AIR units were tested simultaneously for bacteria quantification in a laboratory room in realistic conditions. The results obtained showed that the SPIN AIR unit was the most precise and recovered a higher amount of colony-forming units; consequently this sampler seems to be better for indoor-air bioaerosol concentration measurements. Additionally, positive-hole correction can be avoided due to the SPIN AIR sampling head rotation mechanism. The mean bacterial concentration measured by the other two models was not significantly different. However, due to the high dispersion of the DUO SAS SUPER 360 results, many repetitions are necessary to obtain a reliable measure with this device. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012.

Spanish Government; MICINN

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