skip to: onlinetools | mainnavigation | content | footer

Newsroom

Sandia Technology logo A quarterly research and development magazine

Summer 2007
Volume 9, No. 2

SANDIA TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE

LDRD logo
news notes





Stopping household mold

Liquid Gold Mold Control
A box of Scott’s Liquid Gold Mold Control sits on the shelf at a Home Depot store in Albuquerque, N.M. Photo by Randy Montoya
A formulation developed for emergency cleanup following a terrorist attack involving chemical or biological warfare agents is now available on the shelves of hardware stores across the country to address a more common problem — mold and mildew around the house. The product is Mold Control 500, distributed by Scott’s Liquid Gold of Denver.

MC 500 is based on Sandia’s decontamination formulation (a.k.a. decon foam), which renders harmless a wide variety of both chemical and biological agents. Scott’s Liquid Gold has an arrangement with Modec, Inc., of Denver to sell Mold Control 500 in retail markets. Modec is one of two companies holding Sandia licenses to market and distribute products based on the formulation.

mold spores
Top: Mold spores.
Bottom: Mark Tucker examines two petri dishes: one with a simulant of anthrax growing in it (left), the other treated with the decontaminating formulation (right).
“This is pretty exciting,” says researcher Mark Tucker, who leads the Sandia team that developed and tested the formulation. “Mold remediation wasn’t what we set out to do, but the formulation is effective at killing most microorganisms, so it is good to find uses beyond our original intent — especially uses that may improve public health.”

Development of the formulation began at Sandia in 1997, funded initially by the Department of Energy’s Chemical and Biological National Security Program. Other sponsors have included the U.S. military and the LDRD program.

The foam helped clean up buildings contaminated with anthrax powder in 2001 in Washington, D.C., New York, and Florida, and it was staged in the Middle East in 2003 for helping clean up hazardous chemical sites. Sandia’s two licensees have sold the formulation to municipal and state governments, the first responder community, and the U.S. military, among other users.

Tests at Sandia and Kansas State University in 2004 demonstrated the formulation’s effectiveness for killing the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), suggesting its use also might blunt the spread of other viruses such as the Norwalk (cruise ship) virus, avian influenza (bird flu), and the common flu.

The formulation now is being discussed as a potential solution to other problems, including hospital sanitization, meth lab cleanup, mold remediation in commercial buildings, and cleaning out agricultural pesticide sprayers in an environmentally benign way.


Technical contact: Mark Tucker, (505) 844-7264, mdtucke@sandia.gov
Media contact: John German, (505) 844-5199, jdgerma@sandia.gov