Respiratory deposition of ultrafine welding fume particles

Abstract

The inhalation and the deposition of welding-generated ultrafine particles in welders’ respiratory tracts have been linked to severe pulmonary impairments. In the present study, a mobile aerosol lung deposition apparatus (MALDA) was developed and applied to study the respiratory deposition of ultrafine welding fume particles. The MALDA was constructed with a set of physiologically representative human tracheobronchial airway replicas made with high-resolution 3D printers. Ultrafine welding fume particles were generated in a welding fume chamber and delivered to the MALDA. A series of respiratory deposition experiments were carried out using the MALDA to investigate the deposition of ultrafine welding fume particles in different airway generations of the tracheobronchial airways. The results showed that the fractional deposition of ultrafine welding fume particle in the human tracheobronchial airways down to the 9^th airway generation could be readily and systematically measured by the MALDA. The estimated cumulative respiratory deposition ranged from approximately 9–31% for ultrafine welding fume particles between 10 and 100 nm in diameter. The results acquired demonstrated that the MALDA developed has the potential to become a useful apparatus in the future to estimate the respiratory deposition of ultrafine particles in real workplaces.

Keywords:

• Human airway replica
• respiratory deposition
• ultrafine particle
• welding fume

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was supported by PRIME Grant from the School of Public Health, UTHealth and Grant No. 5T42OH008421 09 from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (SWCOEH), a NIOSH Education and Research Center. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Department of Health and Human Services.