Employing volcanic tuff minerals in interior architecture design to reduce microbial contaminants and airborne fungal carcinogens of indoor environments

Abstract

Indoor volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have posed significant risks to human health since people have both shifted to a life spent, for the most part, indoors. Further, changes in materials used in the construction of buildings, furnishings, and tools either leak or encourage the production of VOCs. Whether these enclosed areas are residences, hospitals or workplaces (specifically composting facilities or closed farm buildings for raising livestock), VOCs can rise to levels that threaten people’s health. VOCs can either originate from phenolic and benzene-like compounds in building materials and office furniture or from molds (fungi) growing inside improperly ventilated or sealed buildings. Regardless of the source, exposure to VOCs could lead to significant health concerns from sick-building syndrome, ‘leukemia houses,’ in-hospital fungemia cases or occupation-associated cancer epidemics due to aflatoxicosis. Innovative 21st-century building materials could offer solutions to these challenges. We propose that volcanic materials, clays and minerals (volcanic tuff, modified clay montmorillonite and mineral clinoptilolite), in their original or chemically modified form, could act like synthetic lungs in building walls, breathing and filtering VOCs, and thus limiting human exposure to disease.