Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via La Pira 4, Firenze, Italy.
INSTM Research Unit of Florence, Firenze, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2019 Apr 25;9(1):6531. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-42238-2.
The occurrence of highly severe silica-related diseases among the resin- and silica-based artificial stone workers was claimed, associated to an extremely short latency. High levels of exposure and intrinsic properties of AS are thought to modulate the development of silicosis and auto-immune diseases. This study compares parent materials and processed dusts, to shed light on changes of AS occurring in the manufacturing process, through an XRF, EPR and XAS investigation. We point out the extremely wide variability of the materials, the occurrence of chemical signatures impressed by the processing techniques, and the unprecedented generation of stable radicals associated to the lysis of the Si-O chemical bond inside the resin coated respirable crystalline silica. These results suggest that the AS processing in industrial stone workshops can create respirable dusts with peculiar physical and chemical properties, to be correlated to the observed clinical evidences.
据称，树脂和硅基人造石工人中出现了极高严重程度的与硅相关的疾病，潜伏期极短。高暴露水平和 AS 的内在特性被认为会调节矽肺和自身免疫性疾病的发展。本研究通过 XRF、EPR 和 XAS 研究比较了母体材料和加工粉尘，以阐明制造过程中 AS 发生的变化。我们指出了材料的极大可变性、加工技术留下的化学特征的出现，以及与树脂涂覆的可呼吸结晶二氧化硅内部 Si-O 化学键裂解相关的前所未有的稳定自由基的产生。这些结果表明，工业石材车间中 AS 的加工可以产生具有特殊物理和化学性质的可呼吸粉尘，这与观察到的临床证据有关。
