Allergenic bioaerosols, such as particles originating from animals, mites, fungal spores or plant pollen are ubiquitous in the air. The removal of allergenic bioaerosols from indoor air by air filtration is of high relevance for allergy sufferers. Currently, air filters are mostly tested with well-defined mineral particles or plasticizer aerosols such as ISO 12103-1 A2 fine dust or DEHS. These standardized test dusts represent the particle size of bioaerosols, but not their shape and physicochemical properties, which play an important role in the separation of small, respirable particles (<10 µm).

As biological particles have a different behaviour compared to non-biological particles it is important for filter design and testing to investigate the interactions between biological dusts and (biofunctional) filters also in terms of optimization. The aim was to develop a standardized method for testing filter media and modules with defined test dust containing fungal spores via a special designed filter test rig. The focus lay on comparison of biological separation efficiency with the separation efficiency of common non-biological test dusts as it is important to know about the biological risk of the particles exposed to the filter and to humans and not only number and size...