AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Nano-Manufacturing Topical Conference Tuesday Sessions
       Session NM+IPF-TuM

Invited Paper NM+IPF-TuM5
Nanoparticle Occupational Safety and Health Consortium

Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 9:20 am, Room 2018

Session: Nanotechnology and Society
Presenter: M.L. Ostraat, DuPont Engineering Research and Technology
Authors: M.L. Ostraat, DuPont Engineering Research and Technology
K.A. Swain, DuPont Central Research and Development
J.J. Krajewski, DuPont Engineering Research and Technology
Correspondent: Click to Email
The Nanoparticle Occupational Safety and Health (NOSH) consortium of international industrial, government and non-governmental organizations has focused research upon obtaining information on occupational safety and health associated with aerosol nanoparticles and workplace exposure monitoring and protocols. The technical goals of the consortium include 1) generating well-characterized aerosols of solid nanoparticles and measuring aerosol behavior as a function of time; 2) developing an air sampling method that can be used to conduct worker exposure assessments in workplace settings; and 3) measuring barrier efficiency of filter media to specific engineered aerosol nanoparticles. To accomplish these objectives, multiple aerosol synthesis and characterization systems have been designed to generate well-characterized aerosol nanoparticles of various chemistries < 100 nm. These aerosol nanoparticles are transported to aerosol chambers to examine aerosol behavior as a function of time, including rate of dispersion, aggregation, and particle loss for charged and uncharged aerosol nanoparticles. These aerosol nanoparticle studies form the basis for the development of a portable aerosol nanoparticle monitoring instrument which will be field tested in a wide variety of workplace environments. Through this effort, the consortium has developed instrumentation and protocols required to assess barrier effectiveness of filter media to charged and uncharged aerosol nanoparticles as a function of particle chemistry, particle size distribution, and number concentration. Work continues on identifying appropriate filter media that can be used as effective barriers for aerosol nanoparticles and establishing a knowledge base on determining specifications for using those filter media given a set of known properties about a specific nanoparticle aerosol.