a Institute for Prevention and Occupational Medicine of the German Social Accident Insurance, Institute of the Ruhr University Bochum (IPA) , Bochum , Germany.
b Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA) , Sankt Augustin , Germany.
J Occup Environ Hyg. 2019 Jun;16(6):400-409. doi: 10.1080/15459624.2019.1566734. Epub 2019 Mar 25.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified welding fumes as carcinogenic to humans, and occupational exposure limits should be established to protect welders. The aim of this study is to estimate exposure levels to inhalable and respirable welding fumes by welding process to use them for exposure assessment in epidemiological studies and to derive occupational exposure limits. In total, 15,473 mass concentrations of inhalable and 9,161 concentrations of respirable welding fumes could be analyzed along with welding-related and sampling information, which were compiled in the German database MEGA between 1983 and 2016. In both particle-size fractions, model-based geometric means of the concentrations were estimated by welding process and material for frequently used welding processes adjusted for sampling time and median-centered for calendar years. The inhalable concentrations were approximately twice the respirable concentrations, with medians of 3 mg/m (inter-quartile range: 1.2-7.0 mg/m) and 1.5 mg/m (inter-quartile range: < limit of detection -3.8 mg/m), respectively. The adjusted geometric means of flux-cored arc welding, metal inert and active gas welding, shielded metal arc welding and torch cutting ranged from 0.9 to 2.2 mg/m for respirable welding fumes and from 2.3 to 4.7 mg/m for inhalable fumes. In both particle-size fractions, geometric means were between 0.1 and 0.9 mg/m when performing tungsten inert gas, autogeneous, resistance, laser, and plasma welding or spraying. Results derived from this large dataset are useful for a quantitative exposure assessment to estimate health risks of welders.
国际癌症研究机构将焊接烟尘归类为人类致癌物，应制定职业接触限值以保护焊工。本研究的目的是估计通过焊接工艺可吸入和呼吸性焊接烟尘的暴露水平，以便将其用于流行病学研究中的暴露评估，并推导出职业接触限值。总共可以分析 15473 个可吸入性和 9161 个呼吸性焊接烟尘的质量浓度，以及与焊接相关的和采样信息，这些信息在 1983 年至 2016 年期间被汇编在德国数据库 MEGA 中。在这两个粒径分数中，通过焊接工艺和材料来估计模型的浓度几何平均值，对于常用的焊接工艺，根据采样时间进行调整，并以日历年份为中心进行中位数中心化。可吸入性浓度大约是呼吸性浓度的两倍，中位数分别为 3mg/m（四分位距：1.2-7.0mg/m）和 1.5mg/m（四分位距：<检测限-3.8mg/m）。药芯焊丝电弧焊、金属惰性和活性气体焊、金属保护电弧焊和火焰切割的呼吸性焊接烟尘调整后的几何平均值范围为 0.9-2.2mg/m，可吸入性烟尘的几何平均值范围为 2.3-4.7mg/m。在这两个粒径分数中，当进行钨极惰性气体、自耗、电阻、激光和等离子焊接或喷涂时，几何平均值在 0.1-0.9mg/m 之间。从这个大型数据集得出的结果可用于定量暴露评估，以估计焊工的健康风险。
