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Angewandte Chemie (International Ed. in... Aug 2022Analyses of air and house dust have shown that pollution of the indoor environment with microplastics could pose a fundamental hygienic problem. Indoor microplastics can... (Review)
Review
Analyses of air and house dust have shown that pollution of the indoor environment with microplastics could pose a fundamental hygienic problem. Indoor microplastics can result from abrasion, microplastic beads are frequently added to household products and microplastic granules can be found in artificial turf for sports activities and in synthetic admixtures in equestrian hall litter. In this context, the question arose as to what extent particulate emissions of thermoplastic materials from 3D printing should be at least partially classified as microplastics or nanoplastics. The discussion about textiles as a possible source of indoor microplastics has also been intensified. This Minireview gives an overview of the current exposure of residents to microplastics. Trends can be identified from the results and preventive measures can be derived if necessary. It is recommended that microplastics and their additives be given greater consideration in indoor environmental surveys in the future.
Topics: Dust; Environmental Monitoring; Microplastics; Plastics; Printing, Three-Dimensional
PubMed: 35670249
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202205713 -
MMW Fortschritte Der Medizin Mar 2020
Review
Topics: Air Pollution; Cities; Dust; Particulate Matter; Public Health
PubMed: 32221888
DOI: 10.1007/s15006-020-0292-3 -
Environmental Science and Pollution... Jan 2023Coal mine pollution is a serious threat to the mine safe production and occupational health of miners. Chemical dust suppression can effectively reduce the concentration... (Review)
Review
Coal mine pollution is a serious threat to the mine safe production and occupational health of miners. Chemical dust suppression can effectively reduce the concentration of coal dust and suppress the re-entrainment of dust. This paper discusses the research progress of three kinds of traditional dust suppressants: the wetting-type, cohesive type, and condensed type. In order to meet dust suppression and environmental protection requirements, 7 kinds of new type dust suppressants, such as compound, ecological environmental protection, polymer, functional, microbes, and enzymes, have been developed by the predecessors. And all kinds of dust suppressant mechanism and main performance index have been summarized. Through the analysis of the research results from 1985 to 2021, it is found that the compound and environment-friendly dust suppressants have gradually become the research focus in this field, accounting for 17.93% and 26.21% of the total number of achievements. In the recent 5 years, new materials, such as microbe suppressant, urease suppressant, and nanomaterials, have gradually emerged. Because of their natural and environmental protection characteristics, it could be predicted that they will become the future development trend in this field. However, there are still some problems to be improved, such as expensive price and complex preparation technology.
Topics: Humans; Dust; Coal Mining; Miners; Minerals; Coal; Occupational Exposure
PubMed: 36371569
DOI: 10.1007/s11356-022-23840-w -
Occupational Medicine (Oxford, England) Apr 2020
Topics: Dust; Humans; Sarcoidosis; Silicon Dioxide; Sweden
PubMed: 32311042
DOI: 10.1093/occmed/kqaa016 -
Nature Communications Dec 2022Dust devils (convective vortices loaded with dust) are common at the surface of Mars, particularly at Jezero crater, the landing site of the Perseverance rover. They are...
Dust devils (convective vortices loaded with dust) are common at the surface of Mars, particularly at Jezero crater, the landing site of the Perseverance rover. They are indicators of atmospheric turbulence and are an important lifting mechanism for the Martian dust cycle. Improving our understanding of dust lifting and atmospheric transport is key for accurate simulation of the dust cycle and for the prediction of dust storms, in addition to being important for future space exploration as grain impacts are implicated in the degradation of hardware on the surface of Mars. Here we describe the sound of a Martian dust devil as recorded by the SuperCam instrument on the Perseverance rover. The dust devil encounter was also simultaneously imaged by the Perseverance rover's Navigation Camera and observed by several sensors in the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer instrument. Combining these unique multi-sensorial data with modelling, we show that the dust devil was around 25 m large, at least 118 m tall, and passed directly over the rover travelling at approximately 5 m s. Acoustic signals of grain impacts recorded during the vortex encounter provide quantitative information about the number density of particles in the vortex. The sound of a Martian dust devil was inaccessible until SuperCam microphone recordings. This chance dust devil encounter demonstrates the potential of acoustic data for resolving the rapid wind structure of the Martian atmosphere and for directly quantifying wind-blown grain fluxes on Mars.
Topics: Extraterrestrial Environment; Dust; Mars; Wind; Atmosphere
PubMed: 36513637
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35100-z -
Allergologia Et Immunopathologia 2021The Saharan Air Layer is a mass of hot, dry air laden with dust that forms over the Sahara and moves towards the Atlantic Ocean. This air mass contains soil dust... (Review)
Review
The Saharan Air Layer is a mass of hot, dry air laden with dust that forms over the Sahara and moves towards the Atlantic Ocean. This air mass contains soil dust particles emitted by the action of winds on the African continent. Between June and August, the large-scale patterns of wind circulation transport dust from the Sahara across the tropical North Atlantic Ocean, affecting parts of the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, even some regions of the United States, and the Mediterranean and Southern Europe. Between December and April, wind circulation patterns facilitate dust transportation from the Sahara to the northern parts of South America and the Amazon. This dust transportation a phenomenon of interest to geosciences and public health because of the potential health impacts of dust dispersion and circulation in the atmosphere. Thus, we assessed the relationship between exposure to Saharan dust (SahD) and its implications for human health in the Americas. We performed a nonsystematic review in the PubMed, Google Scholar, EMBASE, and Scielo databases of studies published between 2000 and 2020 in Portuguese, English, French, or Spanish using the search words "Saharan dust," or "mineral dust," or "desert dust," and "human health." The available direct air pollutants measurements indicate that the pollution level in the cities affected on a constant and prolonged basis is high versus acceptable standards. Further, this review also showed that the negative health effects of SahD are sparsely studied in the Americas.
Topics: Africa, Northern; Air Pollutants; Atmosphere; Dust; Environmental Monitoring; Humans; United States
PubMed: 34224235
DOI: 10.15586/aei.v49i4.436 -
Chemosphere Jul 2022Microplastics (MP) have become a major emerging class of pollutants representing significant eco-toxicological risks for ecosystems and marine environments. The aim of...
Microplastics (MP) have become a major emerging class of pollutants representing significant eco-toxicological risks for ecosystems and marine environments. The aim of this study was to identify, classify and quantify MP present in both road dust and stormwater samples. A significantly higher level of MPs within road dust samples was detected from industrial area (1130 particles/kg of dust) than from residential area (520 particles/kg of dust), while stormwater samples from industrial and residential sites yielded 26 particles/L and 17 particles/L, respectively. Fiber-like shape accounted for 53% and 74% in road dust and stormwater samples, respectively. The main polymeric materials collected for both road dust and stormwater samples were, in order of occurrence (i) low-density polyethylene, (ii) high-density polyethylene, (iii) polypropylene, (iv) polyethylene terephthalate, (v) polystyrene, (vi) polyester and (vii) poly (amide). Most of the MP had an average maximum dimension smaller than 2 mm for both road dust and stormwater samples. The results from this study demonstrates that road dust is a significant contributor to MP pollution through direct polymeric materials wear off and transfer through stormwater, which eventually will end up in open water ways and broader ecological niches.
Topics: Dust; Ecosystem; Environmental Monitoring; Microplastics; Plastics; Polyethylene; Water Pollutants, Chemical
PubMed: 35337827
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134389 -
Journal of Environmental Management Dec 2023Smelting dust is a toxic waste produced in metal-mineral pyrometallurgical processes. To eliminate or reduce the adverse environmental impacts of smelting dust, valuable... (Review)
Review
Smelting dust is a toxic waste produced in metal-mineral pyrometallurgical processes. To eliminate or reduce the adverse environmental impacts of smelting dust, valuable components need to be selectively separated from the toxic components present in the waste. This paper reviews the chemical composition, phase composition and particle size distribution characteristics of smelting dust, and the results show that smelting dust has excellent physicochemical characteristics for recovering valuable metals. The process flow, critical factors, development status, advantages and disadvantages of traditional technologies such as pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy and biometallurgy were discussed in depth. Conventional treatment methods typically prioritize separating and reclaiming specific elements with high concentrations. However, these methods face challenges such as excessive chemical usage and limited selectivity, which can hinder the sustainable utilization of smelting dust. With the increasing scarcity of resources and strict environmental requirements, a single treatment process can hardly fulfil the demand, and a physical field-enhanced technology for releasing and separating valuable metals is proposed. Through analysing the effect of electric field, microwave and ultrasound on recovering valuable metals from smelting dust, the enhancement mechanism of physical field on the extraction process was clarified. This paper aimed to provide reference for the resource utilization of smelting dust.
Topics: Dust; Electronic Waste; Metals; Environment; Minerals; Recycling
PubMed: 37806275
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119228 -
Forensic Science International Mar 2020While most evidence types considered by forensic scientists result from the interactions between criminals, objects or victims at crime scenes, dust evidence arises from...
While most evidence types considered by forensic scientists result from the interactions between criminals, objects or victims at crime scenes, dust evidence arises from the mere presence of individuals and objects at locations of interest. Dust is ubiquitous. Yet, the use of dust evidence is anecdotical and is limited to cases where rare and characteristic particles are observed. The dust at any given location contains a large number of particles from different types and the dust present on an object or individual traveling across locations may be indicative of the locations recently visited by an individual, and, in particular, of the presence of an individual at a particular site of interest, e.g., the scene of a crime. In this paper, we propose to represent dust mixtures as vectors of counts of the individual particles, which can be characterised by any appropriate analytical technique. This strategy enables us to describe a dust mixture as a mixture of multinomial distributions over a fixed number of dust particle types. Using a latent Dirichlet allocation model, we make inference on (a) the contributions of sites of interest to a dust mixture, and (b) the particle profiles associated with these sites.
Topics: Algorithms; Bayes Theorem; Dust; Models, Theoretical; Statistical Distributions
PubMed: 32058271
DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2020.110144 -
Environmental Science and Pollution... Apr 2023The recent increase in silicosis cases in several countries casts doubt on dust control practices and their effectiveness in preventing respirable crystalline silica... (Review)
Review
The recent increase in silicosis cases in several countries casts doubt on dust control practices and their effectiveness in preventing respirable crystalline silica (RCS) exposure. Apart from silicosis, RCS may lead to other illnesses, health-related quality of life losses for workers and their families, and economic losses for companies. Thus, this systematic literature review examined the effectiveness of interventions employed to prevent exposure to RCS and increase the use of dust control measures. The review used keywords related to dust control interventions to search seven databases. Search results were screened and extracted for synthesis. The narrative synthesis showed the extent of research investment in China. In several designs and combinations, the interventions utilized water, surfactant, foam, and air currents to reduce dust exposure. These interventions offer varying degrees of dust control effectiveness against RCS and respirable dust. Although evidence indicates that interventions significantly decrease dust concentration levels, the control measures in place may not effectively prevent workplace overexposure to RCS. The review found that education and training interventions are employed to improve dust controls and respiratory protective equipment (RPE) use. Also, marketing strategies promote the use of RPE. These interventions can increase the frequency of use of RPE and the adoption of best practice dust control measures. Interventions increase knowledge, awareness, and attitudes about RPE usage and generate positive perceptions while reducing misconceptions. However, the benefits obtained from an intervention may diminish after its implementation, indicating that the interventions may not continually motivate workers to adopt control measures or use RPE.
Topics: Humans; Dust; Air Pollutants, Occupational; Quality of Life; Silicon Dioxide; Inhalation Exposure; Occupational Exposure; Workplace; Silicosis
PubMed: 36964805
DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-26321-w