Experiment on Filamentous Fungi in Shower Filters

Abstract

There were news about shower filter products which got fungi in April 2019. The mugwort shower filter began to produce since February 2019. The product in the issue was unable to check the fact about the generation of fungi as it was discarded by the user. Thereby, it was necessary to carry out the fungi generating experiment and the experiment to check out the possibility of infected shower filter. In this paper, fungi generating experiment was carried out using shower filter which contains mugwort, reported in the case, maintaining the humidity and temperature of the shower room. Set mugwort filter as the experimental group and common filter as control group. With six randomly selected samples, the experimental period was 1^st week, 2^nd week, 3^rd week, 1^st month, 2^nd month, 3^rd month, 6^th month, 8^th month. In consideration of the possibility that fungi may exist inside the unused shower filter, commissioned the test to the Korea Chemical Research Institute (KTR), a third trust organization. As a result, aerobacter (bacteria, fungus), staphylococcus aureus, pseudomonas aeruginosa and colon bacillus were not detected. The results of the test for fungi generation by used shower filter showed that all 6 experimental groups (mugwort shower filter) and 6 control groups (general shower filter) did not produced fungi inside the filter. January 2020, products with similar case were reported. Korea Standard Test Researcher (KSTR) conducted additional fungi generating tests with the product. As a result, fungi did not grow. Comprehensively review the results, this confirmed that the report about mugwort shower filter was not true. To improve the misrecognizing situation, in the process of manufacture of shower filters, the percentage of mugwort extract shall be reduced from the previous. 4% to less than 2%, which is half the level. This paper will be used as a basic data for the people's health..