THE DUST HOLDING CAPACITY OF POROUS PLASTIC FOAM USED IN PARTICLE SIZE-SELECTIVE SAMPLING

Health-related sampling is required for risk assessment of personal exposure to dust. Foams are used for sampling the thoracic and respirable dust fractions, but there is a limit in dust holding capacity of the foams. This study supply data on the holding capacity of foams. The size selector tested incorporated two stages in series followed by a back up filter. The first stage was a 30ppi foam (thickness 10mm) and the second stage was a 90ppi foam (thickness 30mm). At a face velocity of 0.13m/s the foams mimic the ISO-CEN penetration curves for the thoracic (30ppi foam) and respirable (90ppi foam) dust fractions. The dust holding capacity of the size selector was tested for non-neutralized dust generated from nine different materials and the capacity was low (<1mg/cm2 face area) for five of the materials. The highest capacity observed was 10mg/cm2 face area.