Characterization of Foundry Particle Sizes and Selection of Agents for Workplace Protection Factor Measurement

Details

• Personal Author:
  Berardinelli, Stephen P. Jr. ; Coffey, Christopher C. ; Hewett, Paul ; Jensen P ; Viscusi D ; Zhuang Z
• Description:
  A recent study was conducted to investigate the effect of good- and poor-fitting half-mask, non-powered, air-purifying respirators on protection under actual workplace environments at a steel foundry. The purpose of this companion study was to characterize particle size distributions and elemental composition of exposures arising from two tasks at the steel foundry in order to determine what aspects were appropriate for use in measuring protection factors using half-mask elastomeric respirators. Eight personal impactor samples were collected on burners/welders (4) and chippers/grinders (4). Seventeen area impactor samples were collected near these workers. The personal impactor sample filters and ten area impactor sample filters were analyzed for chromium, copper, iron, and manganese by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) method. The other seven area impactor samples were analyzed for total mass by gravimetry. The particle size data for each task (by elements or by total mass) are generally well-fitted with two mode distribution models. The mean size for the first mode was about 0.5 um and it ranged from 7.3 to 12.6 um for the second mode. In general, the area under the curve for the first mode for burners was larger than that for chippers indicating burners were exposed to more smaller particles than chippers. Mean respirable fractions of 0.468 and 0.174 for iron were determined from the personal samples for the burners and chippers, respectively. The respirable fractions for personal samples were generally larger than those for area samples. The distributions for elemental iron and total mass were similar. The authors conclude that iron is an appropriate agent for measuring actual protection factors in foundry operations. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Respiratory Protective Devices Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Air-purifiers Air-purifying-respirators Filters Gravimetry Personal-protective-equipment Protective-equipment Respiratory-protective-equipment Sampling Work-environment Workplace-monitoring Workplace-studies

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• Series:
  Mining Publications
• Publisher:
  American Industrial Hygiene Association
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 9 ; Pennsylvania ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  PRL - Pittsburgh Research Laboratory ; DRDS - Division of Respiratory Disease Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  98
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20022557
• Citation:
  American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition, June 1-6, 2002, San Diego, California. Fairfax, VA: American Industrial Hygiene Association, 2002 Jun; :98
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2002
• NORA Priority Area:
  Research Tools and Approaches: Exposure Assessment Methods
• Performing Organization:
  West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  19940701
• Source Full Name:
  American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition, June 1-6, 2002, San Diego, California
• End Date:
  20050630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1584455b59924a7f35c13805d2a1865911a83c1aabd05c6db0f4e66dee372b9340e79a261570ffaab0d56e88b26066c69933906c921188054ed562f9ef9e3cc6
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/220555/cdc_220555_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 494.93 KB ]