Evaluating the use of a field-based silica monitoring approach with dust from copper mines.
Monitoring worker exposure to respirable crystalline silica in dusty environments is an important part of a proactive health and safety program. This is the case for surface copper mines in Arizona and New Mexico. The spatial and temporal variability of respirable dust and crystalline silica concent...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Occupational & Environmental Hygiene Vol. 15; no. 10; pp. 732 - 743 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
| Formato: | pictorial research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Oct2018
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=133105287&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 133105287 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 15459624 V1L jtl: Journal of Occupational & Environmental Hygiene issn: 15459624 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Oct2018 vid: 15 iid: 10 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania artinfo: ui: 133105287 133105287 133105287 10.1080/15459624.2018.1495333 133105287 ppf: 732 ppct: 11 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Evaluating the use of a field-based silica monitoring approach with dust from copper mines. aug: au: Cauda, Emanuele Chubb, Lauren Reed, Rustin Stepp, Robert affil: Pittsburgh Mining Research Division, Dust Control, Ventilation and Toxic Substances Branch, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania sug: subj: Mining Dust Silicon Dioxide Analysis Copper Occupational Health Occupational Exposure Prevention and Control Environmental Monitoring Arizona Mexico Spectrophotometry, Infrared Methods Polymers Minerals Confidence Intervals Inhalation Exposure ab: Monitoring worker exposure to respirable crystalline silica in dusty environments is an important part of a proactive health and safety program. This is the case for surface copper mines in Arizona and New Mexico. The spatial and temporal variability of respirable dust and crystalline silica concentrations in those mines, coupled with the time lapse in obtaining crystalline silica analysis results from accredited laboratories, present a challenge for an effective exposure monitoring approach and the resulting intervention strategies. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is developing a novel approach to be used at a mine site for the quantification of crystalline silica in respirable dust samples collected with traditional sampling techniques. The non-destructive analysis is carried out using a portable Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) unit. In this study, respirable dust samples were collected over two visits to each of five copper mines, for a total of 10 datasets. The silica in each respirable dust sample was estimated by analyzing the sample with the portable FTIR unit. The quality of the estimation was assessed using the results of the NIOSH 7500 method on the same samples. The confounding effect of other minerals present in the respirable dust in the mines was also assessed, and two quantification approaches were investigated to address it: a sector-specific and a mine-specific approach. The results showed that the sector-specific approach is not effective due to the high variability of relative composition of the minerals among mines. For this approach the combined average relative difference was −13% (−17.6%, −8.9% CI). When using the mine-specific quantification approach, the average relative difference was as low as 2.8% (−3.7%, 9.3% CI); however, this approach was still affected by the variable relative composition of the minerals in the dust in each mine. The use of a multivariate approach on the analysis of each sample was proposed as the next step to achieve consistent low relative differences. This study demonstrates the potential of using a portable FTIR for estimation of crystalline silica in respirable dust samples for in-field exposure monitoring. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: pictorial research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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