Week 6,7 Lecture

Health & Toxic Substances

Abdul Qadir
NEDUET
Online session 2020
 Health Hazards

Health hazards carry a great deal of impact because the

potential harm to exposed employees is great and the
cost of correction of a single health hazard can run into
millions of dollars.

Health hazards will always tend to be more subtle to

detect than safety hazards, by the very definitions of
health and safety.

health deals with the long-term chronic exposure

effects, whereas safety deals with the more obvious
acute effects that do their damage immediately.
 BASELINE EXAMINATIONS

Pre Employment Physical Examination

This status is important in Placing the employee In the right job

and in detecting any health deterioration due to job exposures.
Occupational health exposures are perhaps the most important
reason for pre employment physical examinations because of the
chronic nature of health hazards.
 Toxic Substances

The term materials with safety hazards and the term substances with health
hazards.

Irritants
Irritants inflame the surfaces of the parts of the body by their corrosive action.
Some irritants affect the skin, but more of them affect the moister surfaces,
especially the lungs.
When the irritant is some type of dust, the lung disease that results is called
pneumoconiosis.
Specific types of pneumoconiosis are:
Fibrosis (development of fibrous scar tissue)
The more dangerous fibroses are asbestosis (from asbestos fibers) and silicosis
(from silica).
Siderosis (from iron oxide dust)
stannosis (from tin dust)
byssinosis (from cotton dust)
and aluminosis (from aluminum dust).
 Toxic Substances

Systemic Poisons
More insidious than irritants are poisons that attack vital organs or
systems of organs. sometimes by toxic mechanisms that are not
understood. The chlorinated hydrocarbons common in solvents and
degreasers, for example, are blamed for liver damage.
The best known systemic poison found in occupational settings is lead.
Other toxic metals are mercury, cadmium, and manganese.

Depressants
Certain substances act as depressants or narcotics on the central
nervous system and as such can actually be useful as medical anesthetics.
methyl alcohol are both systemic poisons and depressants.
Besides affecting health, depressants can have an adverse effect on
safety because they interfere with the concentration of workers who
operate machinery.
The most familiar depressant is ethyl alcohol (the "drinking" variety of
alcohol).
 Toxic Substances

Asphyxiants
Asphyxiants prevent oxygen from reaching the body's cells,
and in the general sense, any gas can be an asphyxiant if there
is enough of it to crowd out the essential proportion of oxygen
in the air.
Examples of asphyxiants are:
Methane
Inert Gases ( Argon, helium & Nitrogen) used in welding
Nitrogen is the principal constituent (78%) of normal air. But
too much nitrogen will reduce the normal proportion of
oxygen (21 % ) in the air. Any proportion of oxygen less than
19.5% is considered oxygen deficient.
 Toxic Substances

Carcinogens
Carcinogens are substances that are known to cause or are
suspected to cause cancer.
cancer has such a long latency period. Sometimes a lapse of
20 or even 30 years occurs between exposure and the
appearance of a cancerous tumor.
Examples are:
Vinyl chloride
While PVC ( Poly Vinyl Chloride) is harmless & stable
Teratogens
Teratogens affect the fetus, so their toxic effect is indirect.
Women should be careful about exposures to certain
substances during pregnancy.
Examples are:
Vinyl chloride
Routes of Entry
 Measures of Exposure

Threshold limit value (TLV)

Evolved and refers to the level of concentration to which
the worker could be exposed during the entire workday
without significant harm.
American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists
(ACGIH)
The TLVs themselves may change from year to year as more
information becomes available.
Permissible Exposure Limits
Term permissible exposure limit (PEL) was used to
distinguish the OSHA prescribed level
PEL remains static while TLC is considered dynamic, PEL is
much strict.
 Time-Weighted Averages

The following formula is used to compute the TWA:

Case Study
 Case Study for mixture

The following formula summarizes the computation:

Case Study for mixture
 Ceiling Levels and STELs

MAC
A "ceiling" value, sometimes abbreviated C or MAC for
maximum acceptable ceiling, is an exposure limit that should
never be exceeded.
STEL
The STEL states a maximum concentration permitted for a
specified duration, usually 15 minutes.
For instance, Table A.2 lists the following PELs for toluene:
TOLUENE
TWA 200 ppm
MAC 300 ppm
STEL 500 ppm for 10 minutes
 Action Level

If control measures are taken only after TLVs are

exceeded, it may be too late to prevent serious harm
and also perhaps too late to prevent citation by
authorities.
ALs are somewhat of a lock-the-barn-before-the-
horse-runs-away measure, which anticipates the
problem before TLVs or other measures are exceeded.
ALs are set arbitrarily at one-half PEL.
The difference between the AL and the PEL provides a
margin for error to ensure that worker exposures do not
exceed the PEL, by implementing controls before PELs
are reached.
 UNITS

PPM
Gases are usually more conveniently measured by volume,
and thus the first column, labeled p/m (parts per million), is
usually used for these substances.
Mg/m3
Liquids and some solids are more coveniently measured by
weight, and thus the second column, labeled mg/m3
(miligrams of particulate per cubic meter), is preferred for
these substances.
If the molecular weight of the substance is known, conversion
can be made by using the formula

Where MW is the molecular weight of the substances. Parts per

million is sometimes abbreviated ppm rather than p/m.
 Environmental Control and Noise

Once having found that an air contaminant does exist,

there are a variety of strategies available for dealing
with it.
These strategies are engineering controls, work-
practice controls, and personal protective equipment,
in that order.
we will examine methods to provide engineering
solutions to the air-contaminant problem, chiefly
through ventilation.
Noise hazards will also be examined, along with both
engineering and work-practices controls to control these
hazards.
 VENTILATION

Ventilation may be the most obvious engineering

solution to an air-contaminant problem, but before
acceding to this solution, it should be recognized that
other ways to deal with the Problem may be even better.
a series of approaches was enumerated as
engineering design principles.“
The most desirable way to deal with an air
contaminant is to change the process so that the
contaminant is no longer produced. This is so obvious
that it is sometimes overlooked.
If the process can be changed thus eliminating the
source of contamination, there may be tremendous
gains.
 VENTILATION

Avoid welding by using other fastening methods.

Avoid cutting oils by using dry cutting methods.
One way a process can be changed is to isolate or enclose it. However a
particularly contaminating process is in the plant. perhaps it should be located
in a separate building so that it does not contribute to the overall ventilation
problem.
A slight variation to changing the process is to change the materials used
Carbon tetrachloride replaced by trichloro-ethylene and perchloro-
ethylene
hydrocarbons also termed as VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) shall be
replaced by water based solvents
Water based solvents causes rust.
In sand blasting. Silica sand shall be replaced by steel shot, removing the
silica contamination which causes lung disease called silicosis.
lead based paints to substitute materials such as iron oxide pigments.
Freon to propane as a propellant for aerosol cans. In this materials switch
was intended to protect the environment (the ozone layer), but the solution
may be more hazardous to the individual because propane is a flammable gas.
 Design principles

Most heating and air-conditioning ducts have right-angle bends, which may
be fine for gases, but greatly impair the ability of the ducts to transport
particulates.
 Design principles

Another questionable ventilation system is an ordinary

household fan used to blow away smoke from a contaminant
source. It is true that a fan can dilute the concentration of a
contaminant in a given place, and dilution ventilation is a
recognized method of reducing concentrations to levels lower
than the PEL.
But the question is "Where is the fan blowing the
contamination to?" It is adding to the overall background level of
air contamination in the plant and may later have to be dealt with
if other processes are also producing contaminations.
Dilution ventilation can be likened to "sweeping the dirt under
the rug.“
Focus the intake right on the contaminant, much as a vacuum
cleaner is designed to do.
 Design principles

The best exhau t ventilation systems are the "pull" types, not the "push '
types. Even within the exhaust duct. the fan should be placed at the end of the
duct if possible.
 Makeup Air

With an exhaust, ventilation system, some source of makeup air is essential.

The traditional way to supply makeup air was simply to open windows and
doors. Today, however, it ha become increasingly attractive to re-circulate the
exhaust air after filtration an decontamination.

A quick check to determine whether there is a sufficient makeup air supply is

to check atmospheric pressure both inside and outside the plant. The
pressure inside should be only slightly lower than the pressure outside. If the
pressure inside is substantially lower, then the makeup air supply is
insufficient.
 Industrial Noise

Noise exposure is another classic health problem because

chronic exposures are the ones that typically do the damage. A
single acute exposure can do permanent damage, and in this
sense, noise is a safety problem, but noise exposures of this type
are extremely rare.
Characteristics of Sound Waves
Noise can be defined as unwanted sound. excessive sound
or harmful sound. Sound is generally understood as a
pressure wave in the atmosphere. In liquids, sound is also a
pressure wave; in rigid solids, sound takes the form of a
vibration.
Two basic characteristics of sound waves important to the
subject of noise control are:
1. The amplitude, or pressure peak intensity, of the wave;
2. The frequency in which the pressure peaks occur.
Characteristic of Sound waves
 Decibels

It is difficult to talk sensibly about such a large range of audible

pressures, and it is especially difficult to set standards. Imagine a
noise meter reading in the millions. The situation is further
complicated by the lessening of the ability of the human ear to
detect pressure differences as sounds get louder. To deal with
these problems, a unit of measure called the Decibel (dB) has
been devised to measure sound-pressure intensity.
The decibel has a logarithmic relation to the actual pressure
intensity, and thus the scale becomes compressed as the sound
becomes louder, until in the upper ranges, the decibel is only a
gross measure of actual pressure intensity.
Decibels
Decibels
Decibels
Decibels
 A- weighted Scale

The total range, of sound frequencies audible to the human car

is from about 20 to about 20,000Hz.
The ear is more sensitive to some of these frequencies than
others, particularly the upper midddle range from about 1000 to
about 6000 Hz. Thus, sound-level meters have been devised to
bias the decibel reading slightly to emphasize the frequencies
from 1000 to 6000 Hz.
This biased reading is called the A-weighted scale, and
resulting readings are abbreviated dBA instead of simply dB.
OSHA recognizes the A-scale, and OSHA PELs are expressed in
dBAs.