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UT researchers study best ways to suppress dangerous crystalline silica dust |
| By
Jim Winkler |
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Dec 7, 2007 |
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Each spring Toledo and northwest Ohio jumps from winter to construction season, with motorists greeted by orange barrels, lane closures, and thundering jackhammers and saws breaking up and sawing concrete roadbeds.
And with a boom in construction going on in some parts of northwest Ohio, workers in excavators can often be seen digging in a cloud of dust.
Construction means progress, but it can be loud, dusty and sometimes harmful to health, which is one reason four University of Toledo researchers are using a new $185,000 grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to conduct a study to determine the best ways to suppress hazardous dust produced during concrete polishing and grinding.
Three Department of Public Health and Homeland Security faculty members — Drs. Farhang Akbar-Khanzadeh, professor; Michael Bisesi, professor and chair; and Sheryl Milz, assistant professor — and Dr. Sadik Khuder, a professor of medicine and study design expert, are conducting the research that will compare the effectiveness of two well-established dust-control techniques. One involves spraying water where dust is being generated, while the other uses powerful vacuums attached to concrete grinders and polishers. Both methods aim to reduce toxic dust emissions.
A local concrete company is participating by setting a field laboratory where experiments will be conducted.
“The cloud of dust you see when someone is cutting or grinding concrete is not harmless,” Akbar-Khanzadeh said. “It contains crystalline silica particles that have been linked to a serious lung disease known as silicosis that, in some cases, leads to lung cancer.”
Crystalline silica dust can be unleashed during construction, sandblasting, mining, quarrying, asphalt paving, concrete mixing, glass and ceramics manufacturing, and tunneling. Silica is a mineral found in sand, granite, concrete and other substances. Particles invade the lungs, causing minute cuts, lesions and scar tissue that eventually fill up the air sacs and make breathing difficult.
Akbar-Khanzadeh explained that there are technologies and practices available to prevent dust-related disease, adding that it is vital that employers monitor dust levels to assess the risk of exposure of employees and they put control measures in place to reduce the levels to which workers are exposed, and consequently reduce their risk of developing silicosis and/or lung cancer.
In the UT study, subjects will be randomly assigned to conventional operations where there are no dust controls or to operations “with proper dust-control options in place,” according to Akbar-Khanzadeh.
Personal respirable dust samples will be collected during concrete finishing from three groups of workers applying hand-held grinders. One group will use grinders connected to running water, while another group will use grinders connected to vacuums. A third group will use grinders with no dust-suppression equipment.
“Our research is aimed at finding the best practical way to lower the risk of exposure to silica dust,” Akbar-Khanzadeh said. “This will make working with concrete and other products that contain silica much safer.”
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