Impacts of Various Cleaning Reagents on Mold Growth

Abstract

Bread is an ideal environment for mold growth due to its high moisture content and optimal pH level. Past research has investigated the effects that cleaning agents have on killing mold-growth inducing spores on various surfaces. It was hypothesized that mold growth on bread would be affected when the surface in contact with the bread was wiped with a cleaning product prior. No condition had consistent mold growth presence among all samples, however Control 1 (bread only) and Lysol® treatment had ⅔ bread slices with mold growth. The highest percent coverage of mold was from sample 1 of Control 1(bread only), at 81.05%. Besides when no growth was detected, the lowest mold coverage was from sample 2 of the bleach treatment (36.74%). The highest mean growth rate was from Control 1 (no wiping) at 11.8%. The lowest growth rate was from the bleach treatment, at 7.26%. Although trends suggest that bleach was the most effective treatment, statistical analysis found no statistical significance among growth rate as p>0.05 (p=0.637). Overall, our study did not support our hypothesis, as there was no difference in mold growth and rates between treatments.