AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Deposition of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube (MWCNT) Aerosols in Human Nasal, Oral, and Lung Airways
WEI-CHUNG SU, Yung-Sung Cheng, Teh-Hsun Chen, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Abstract Number: 587 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) has been widely applied as additives in many commercial products today due to their unique physical properties. MWCNT materials might become airborne during manufacturing and application processes, and they could be inhaled by related workers and researchers causing potential lung problems. Therefore, studying the deposition of MWCNT aerosols in human respiratory tract is especially important from the viewpoint of occupational health to estimate associated MWCNT lung dosimatry. This study tried to use a special experimental approach to obtain original data for MWCNTs human airway deposition. In this study, the test MWCNT material was aerosolized by an unique generation system developed by NIOSH. A differential mobility analyzer (DMA) was employed to size classify the generated MWCNT aerosols into three designated classification diameters (nominal diameters: 100, 200, and 300 nm). The human airway deposition experiments were conducted by delivering the size classified MWCNT aerosols into well-defined human nasal, oral, and lung airway replicas. The deposition fraction and the deposition efficiency of the MWCNT aerosols in the human airway were determined by measuring the differential concentration of MWCNT aerosols between the inlet and outlet(s) of the airway replica using a sequential mobility particle sizer (SMPS). The deposition data obtained from this study showed that MWCNT deposition fractions found in most airway sections used in this study were generally less than 7%. This result implies that, within the aerosol size range studied, most of the MWCNT aerosols inhaled into the human airways can easily pass through the upper airways and transit down to the lower airways where adverse health effects might be induced. The experimental method used in this study is believed also could be applied on other nanomaterial aerosols to investigate the human airway deposition, which would greatly facilitate the health risk assessment for exposure to various nanomaterials in laboratories or workplaces.