RT Journal Article
T1 Critical aspects in occupational exposure assessment with different aerosol metrics in an industrial spray coating process
A1 Belosi, Franco
A1 Koivisto, Antti Joonas
A1 Furxhi, Irini
A1 de Ipiña, Jesús Lopez
A1 Nicosia, Alessia
A1 Ravegnani, Fabrizio
A1 Ortelli, Simona
A1 Zanoni, Ilaria
A1 Costa, Anna
AB Engineered Nanomaterials (ENMs) have several uses in various industrial fields and are embedded in a myriad of consumer products. However, there is continued concern over the potential adverse health effects and environmental impacts of ENMs due to their unique physico-chemical characteristics. Currently, there are no specific international regulations for various ENMs. There are also no Occupational Exposure Limits (OEL) regulated by the European Union (EU) for nanomaterials in the form of nano-objects, their aggregates or agglomerates (NOAA). For ENMs the question of which metric to be used (i.e., mass, surface area, number concentrations) to determine the exposure is still not resolved. The aim of this work is to assess the worker exposure by inhalation in an industrial spray coating process by using all three metrics mentioned above. Two target ENMs (N-doped TiO2, TiO2N and AgNPs capped with a quaternized hydroxyethyl-cellulose, AgHEC) generated for industrial-scale spraying processes were considered. Results showed that the averaged particle number concentration (10–100 nm) was below 2.7 104 cm−3 for both materials. The Lung Deposited Surface Area (LDSA) was in the range between 73 and 98 μm2cm−3 and the particle mass concentration (obtained by means of ICP-EOS off-line analysis) resulted below 70 μg m−3 and 0.4 μg m−3 for TiO2 and Ag, respectively. Although, the airborne particles concentration compared well with the NIOSH Recommended Exposure Level (REL) limits the contribution to the background, according to EN 17058 (Annex E) was significant (particularly in the particle number and PM1 mass concentrations). We successfully evaluated the worker exposure by means of the different airborne particles' metrics (number, surface and mass concentrations). We concluded that worker exposure assessment involving ENMs is a complex procedure with requires both real time and off-line measurements and a deep investigation of the background.
SN 2452-0748
YR 2023
FD 2023-04
LK https://hdl.handle.net/11556/3637
UL https://hdl.handle.net/11556/3637
LA eng
NO Belosi , F , Koivisto , A J , Furxhi , I , de Ipiña , J L , Nicosia , A , Ravegnani , F , Ortelli , S , Zanoni , I & Costa , A 2023 , ' Critical aspects in occupational exposure assessment with different aerosol metrics in an industrial spray coating process ' , NanoImpact , vol. 30 , 100459 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.impact.2023.100459
NO Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors
NO The authors wish to thank Asperti M. and Altin M. (Witek srl) for their technical support and Del Secco B. and Trabucco S. for their assistance in the measurement campaigns. This work was supported by the “ASINA” (Anticipating Safety Issues at the Design Stage of NAno Product Development) European project. ASINA has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N. 862444. This paper reflects only the author's view, and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
DS TECNALIA Publications
RD 30 jul 2024