Wood Dust Particle and Mass Concentrations and Filtration Efficiency in Sanding of Wood Materials

Abstract

The importance of fine particles has become apparent as the knowledge of their effects on health has increased. Fine particle concentrations have been published for outside air, plasma arc cutting, welding, and grinding, but little data exists for the woodworking industry. Sanding was evaluated as the producer of the woodworking industry's finest particles, and was selected as the target study. The number of dust particles in different particle size classes and the mass concentrations were measured in the following environments: workplace air during sanding in plywood production and in the inlet and return air; in the dust emission chamber; and in filter testing. The numbers of fine particles were low, less than 10(4) particles/cm(3) (10(7) particles/L). They were much lower than typical number concentrations near 10(6) particles/cm(3) measured in plasma arc cutting, grinding, and welding. Ultrafine particles in the size class less than 100 nm were found during sanding of MDF (medium density fiberboard) sheets. When the cleaned air is returned to the working areas, the dust content in extraction systems must be monitored continuously. One way to monitor the dust content in the return air is to use an after-filter and measure pressure drop across the filter to indicate leaks in the air-cleaning system. The best after-filtration materials provided a clear increase in pressure drop across the filter in the loading of the filter. The best after-filtration materials proved to be quite effective also for fine particles. The best mass removal efficiencies for fine particles around 0.3 mum were over 80% for some filter materials loaded with sanding wood dust.

Children exposure to indoor ultrafine particles in urban and rural school environments

“…This supports the results obtained by the previously mentioned study from Spilak et al (2014), where higher levels of UFPs were also associated with wood-type floors. Although there is large evidence that UFPs originate from wood combustion or wood sanding during furniture production (Torvela et al 2014, Welling et al 2008, there is few data concerning the possible production of ultrafine particulate matter from secondary reactions between certain chemical agents and wood. For instance, the act of sweeping the floor with floor cleaning products is known to produce UFPs due to secondary reactions between the chemical agents and ozone (Nazaroff & Weschler 2004); therefore, it is possible that these chemicals may also react with wood components producing secondary organic aerosols.…”

Human Health Risk of Ingested Nanoparticles That Are Added as Multifunctional Agents to Paints: an In Vitro Study

“…Those studies revealed that a smaller number of ENPs and a larger number of micro-sized particles were released [5,33]. The size of the released particles was independent of the ENPs in the paint formulation, but dependent on the hardness of the paint and the grit size of the sanding paper, as well as the pressure applied during the sanding process.…”

Laboratory Investigations Applied to Wood Dust Emmited by Electrical Hand-Held Belt Sander

“…These factors, according to [12], can be divided into three groups that characterize the properties of sanded wood, the properties of the abrasive and the parameters of the sanding process. Factors as wood density and hardness [9], moisture content of the wood [13], grain size of coated abrasive [6], type of sander [6], sanding pressure [12], cutting speed [12], and sanding direction [7] have been investigated. Aim of this paper was to investigate the effects of grit size and wood species on mass concentration and size distribution of wood dust produced by hand-held belt sander.…”