Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access originally published online on February 23, 2006
Annals of Occupational Hygiene 2006 50(3):231-240; doi:10.1093/annhyg/mei081
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Original Article |
Airborne Fibres in the Norwegian Silicon Carbide Industry
1 Department of Occupational Hygiene, National Institute of Occupational Health, PO Box 8149 Dep, N-0033 Oslo, Norway and 2 Department of Chemistry, University of Oslo, PO Box 1033, Blindern, N-0315 Oslo, Norway
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: asbjorn.skogstad{at}stami.no
Morphology of silicon carbide (SiC) fibres from the Norwegian SiC industry has been studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The fibres are an unwanted side-product in SiC production. They represent a probable cause of the observed increased occurrence of lung diseases among SiC workers. The main aim of this work is to give a detailed description of the morphological variation of the fibres. Furthermore, it is important to study the occurrence of various morphological types with respect to job types and process parameters. SiC fibres accounted for >90% of all fibres observed. Eight categories of SiC fibres are described based on their morphology. The most frequent fibre category had a smooth surface and accounted for more than half of the observed SiC fibres. The diameter distributions of the eight fibre types were significantly different except for two of the categories. More than 99% of the SiC fibres observed were <3 µm in diameter, satisfying one WHO criterion for health relevant fibres. The aspect ratio and diameter of health-relevant fibres generally followed a lognormal distribution for different fibre categories, whereas fibre length did not. The proportions of SiC fibres (all categories) did not differ significantly between the plants. The proportions differed between plants for two SiC fibre categories including the most dominant type. For two SiC fibre categories and the SiC cleavage fragments differences were observed between job groups. Two other fibre categories were correlated with type of SiC produced (i.e. black or green SiC) and sawdust added to the raw material mix.
Keywords: fibre dimensions • fibre morphology • job groups • scanning electron microscopy • silicon carbide fibres
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