RESEARCH ARTICLE
Evaluation of Occupational Exposure to Silica Dust in Mining Workers in Eastern Iran
Farideh Golbabaei1, Abdollah Gholami2, *, Gholamheidar Teimori-Boghsani3, 4, Mehdi Yaseri5, Mojtaba Kianmehr6
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2019Volume: 12
First Page: 1
Last Page: 6
Publisher Id: TOECOLJ-12-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874213001912010001
Article History:
Received Date: 11/03/2019Revision Received Date: 04/05/2019
Acceptance Date: 16/05/2019
Electronic publication date: 30/06/2019
Collection year: 2019
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background and Objective:
Silica dust is present in almost all mining operations and can cause various health problems such as silicosis in workers. The present study aimed to determine the total and respirable dust levels and the crystalline silica content of the soil in the breathing zone of workers in Iranian mines.
Methods:
This cross-sectional study was carried out in 2016-2017 on six Iranian silica mines. Dust sampling was performed according to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) method No. 0600. The samples were collected from the respiratory zone of workers at 114 stations in different units of the mines. The silica content was measured using the standard NIOSH method No. 7601. The crystalline silica content in bulk samples collected from the soil was determined by using the X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy method.
Results:
The highest concentration of crystalline silica dust was 2.81±0.49 mg/m3 and was observed in the air of crushing unit of mine no. 6, and the lowest was 0.08±0.208 mg/m3 and was measured in the management/administration unit of mine no.1. The mean silica content in the solid surface of the mines was 91%. The total and respirable dust levels in all units of the mines except management/administration were higher than the permissible limit. The free silica content of all collected samples was substantially higher than the permissible limits, and in some cases, it was as much as 100 times above the standard level, which reflects the extremely high risk of working in these mines.
Conclusion:
Exposure of workers with crystalline silica dust in all units was higher than the standard recommended limits. It is imperative to adopt immediate measures based on technical, managerial, and personal protection solutions to reduce the exposure of workers to silica.
