Prolonged exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS) causes silicosis and is also considered a cause of cancer. To meet emerging needs for precise measurements of RCS, from shorter sampling periods (<4 h) and lower air concentrations, collaborative work was done to assess the differences between personal respirable samplers at higher flow rates. The performance of FSP10, GK2.69, and CIP 10...

OBJECTIVES Recent studies have shown that nano-sized carbon black is more toxic than large respirable carbon black because of its higher surface area. However, it is not clear if carbon black made larger by agglomeration demonstrates decreased toxicity. The purpose of this study was to verify if agglomeration affects the toxicity of carbon black using three differently prepared nano-sized carbo...

Inhalation of cobalt (Co) and tungsten carbide (WC) particles, but not Co or WC alone, may cause hard metal disease, risk of which does not appear to be uniform across cemented tungsten carbide (CTC) production processes. Inhalation of Co alone or in the presence of WC may cause asthma. Hypothesizing that aerosol size, chemical content, heterogeneity, and constituent compaction may be important...

BACKGROUND During operation of a jet nebulizer, the temperature of the nebulizer outlet could decrease by more than 10 degrees C, depending on the nebulizer type and operating conditions, such as driving flow rate and fill volume. The droplet size distribution generated from the nebulizer can be measured by a cascade impactor. However, when the cascade impactor is operated at ambient room tempe...

Historically, pharmaceutical aerosols have been employed for the treatment of obstructive airway diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but in the past decades their use has been expanded to treat lung infections associated with cystic fibrosis and other respiratory diseases. Tuberculosis (TB) is acquired after inhalation of aerosol droplets containing the bacilli f...

Introduction: The relationship between elevated level of gas and particulate pollutants with increased mortality resulting from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases has been presented in epidemiological studies. Although the principal mechanisms of diseases are still unknown, inflammatory and homeostatic processes have been known to be related to this issue. Accordingly, this study was condu...

This article discusses the idea and set-up of a laboratory system for generating reproducible concentrated occupational aerosols containing metal compounds. A dust representative for 2 metal-machining workstations (an electric grinder and an electric disc cutter) was released from a fluidized-bed generator, and then sampled and compared in respect to concentration, particle size distribution, p...

Safety assessments and environmental impact statements for facilities require an estimation of airborne releases from accidents. Aerosols generated by accidents are being investigated to develop the source terms for these releases. One example of a severe accidental release event is a pressurized liquid release. Pressurized liquid release experiments performed in static air measured the mass ai...

The Bazhenovskoye chrysotile asbestos deposit has been exploited for 115 years. All the technological operations in the quarry are accompanied by the formation of high-dispersion asbestos-containing aerosols. The dust concentrations at the miner's working places for the last 30 years (1970-2000) were at or below the Russian MACs(m.s.) level (4.0 mg/m3). The seasonal precipitation amount in the ...