The United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, through an informal partnership with industry, labor, and the United States Mine Safety and Health Administration, has developed and tested a new instrument known as the Personal Dust Monitor (PDM). The new dust monitor is an integral part of the cap lamp that coal miners normally carry to work and provides continuous info...

A method of bio-assay of the fibrogenicity of respirable dust is described. Quartz, coal, and quartz-coal dust mixtures were administered to mice via the tail vein, and liver collagen was estimated chemically. Groups of mice that had received doses of 10, 15, and 20 mg. of these dusts were killed at intervals of 10, 20, and 30 weeks after injection. There was, in general, a linear relation betw...

This article examines the spatial variability of dust concentrations within a coal miner's breathing zone and the impact of sampling location at the cap lamp, nose, and lapel. Tests were conducted in the National Institute for Safety and Health Pittsburgh Research Laboratory full-scale, continuous miner gallery using three prototype personal dust monitors (PDM). The dust masses detected by the ...

Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), silicosis, and asbestosis were the most common occupational diseases in the 20 th Century. The passage of the Mine Health and Safety Act in 1968 resulted in reduction of occupational exposures to coal, silica, and asbestos fibers and, thus, decreased incidence of the diseases. However, the most recent data showed that, from the beginning of the 21 st Century,...

The alveolar macrophage (AM) is a critically important cell playing a prominent role in lung inflammation via the production of oxygen radicals, enzymes, arachidonic acid metabolites, and also a large panel of cytokines. Among interstitial lung disorders, silicosis and coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) are the most widespread fibrotic lung diseases. Although their pathophysiology remains incom...

OBJECTIVES A case-control study was conducted in France to assess possible associations between occupational exposures and squamous cell carcinomas of the larynx and hypopharynx. METHODS The study was restricted to men, and included 201 hypopharyngeal cancers, 296 laryngeal cancers, and 296 controls (patients with other tumour sites). Detailed information on smoking, alcohol consumption, and ...

The "capteur individuel de poussiere" CIP 10 personal dust sampler--developed by the Centre d'Etudes et Recherches de Charbonnages de France (CERCHAR) research organization--is a small, quiet, lightweight unit which samples at a flow rate of 10 L/min. It is a three-stage sampler, using two stages to remove nonrespirable dust particles and one stage to collect the respirable fraction. Airflow th...

Although rates of pneumoconiosis in coal miners have declined substantially in the United States since the passage of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, new cases continue to occur, including cases of rapidly progressive disease. In contrast, Australia’s underground coal mining industry has reported few new cases of pneumoconiosis for more than 20 years. Mortality from coal wo...

Mining activities mainly deal with the excavation of raw material from earth’s crust. The sources of particulate matter (PM) emission in opencast coal mines include blasting and drilling operations, coal handling plant operation, loading and transport of overburden and coal by shovel-dumper combination, crushing, conveying and handling of overburden by draglines, and vehicular emission from unp...

BACKGROUND Surfactant-containing water sprays are commonly used in coal mines to collect dust. This study investigates the dust collection performance of different surfactant types for a range of coal dust particle sizes and charges. METHODS Bituminous coal dust aerosol was generated in a wind tunnel. The charge of the aerosol was either left unaltered, charge-neutralized with a neutralizer, ...