Deposition of graphene nanomaterial aerosols in human upper airways

Details

• Personal Author:
  Cheng YS ; Ku BK ; Kulkarni P ; Su W-C
• Description:
  Graphene nanomaterials have attracted wide attention in recent years on their application to state-of-the-art technology due to their outstanding physical properties. On the other hand, the nanotoxicity of graphene materials also has rapidly become a serious concern especially in occupational health. Graphene naomaterials inevitably could become airborne in the workplace during manufacturing processes. The inhalation and subsequent deposition of graphene nanomaterial aerosols in the human respiratory tract could potentially result in adverse health effects to exposed workers. Therefore, investigating the deposition of graphene nanomaterial aerosols in the human airways is an indispensable component of an integral approach to graphene occupational health. For this reason, this study carried out a series of airway replica deposition experiments to obtain original experimental data for graphene aerosol airway deposition. In this study, graphene aerosols were generated, size classified, and delivered into human airway replicas (nasal and oral-to-lung airways). The deposition fraction and deposition efficiency of graphene aerosol in the airway replicas were obtained by a novel experimental approach. The experimental results acquired showed that the fractional deposition of graphene aerosols in airway sections studied were all less than 4%, and the deposition efficiency in each airway section was generally lower than 0.03. These results indicate that the majority of the graphene nanomaterial aerosols inhaled into the human respiratory tract could easily penetrate through the head airways as well as the upper part of the tracheobronchial airways and then transit down to the lower lung airways, where undesired biological responses might be induced. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Aerosols Air Pollutants, Occupational Inhalation Exposure Laboratories Lung Diseases Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Nose Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Particulate Matter Respiratory Tract Diseases Safety Sense Organs Workplace

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• Keywords:
  Aerosol Aerosol-generators Airborne-particles Author Keywords: Graphene Nanomaterial Biological-effects Carbon-compounds Deposition Efficiency Employee-exposure Human Airway Humans Industrial-processes Inhalants Laboratory-testing Lung-disorders Nanotechnology Nasal-cavity Oral-cavity Pulmonary-system-disorders Respiratory-system-disorders Work-environment

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• ISSN:
  1545-9624
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant ; Contract
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New Mexico ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 6
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DART - Division of Applied Research and Technology
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  48-59
• Volume:
  13
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20046665
• Citation:
  J Occup Environ Hyg 2016 Jan; 13(1):48-59
• Contact Point Address:
  Wei-Chung Su, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, 2425 Ridgecrest Dr. SE, Albuquerque, NM 87108
• Email:
  wsu@LRRI.org
• CAS Registry Number:
  Carbon (CAS RN 7440-44-0) ; Graphene (CAS RN 1034343-98-0)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2016
• NORA Priority Area:
  Manufacturing
• Performing Organization:
  Lovelace Biomedical & Environmental Research, Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20120901
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• End Date:
  20160831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:54f2878096b174e55d3102396d814c063fcf3c94212e5e760e211a88403462f2f75ee5cb51ae8dbfeed74d4aac0ac8795da1c07337b6e63d8c67096b0473da9e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/202023/cdc_202023_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.36 MB ]