Indoor Particle Contamination In An Airlaid Papermaking Workshop

Dry formed paper technique can avoid water pollution but brings serious particle contaminants into workshop, mainly including xylary fiber and Super Absorbent Polymer (SAP) particles, which are harmful with the health of workers in the workshop, especially SAP particles. Experimental investigations of particle concentrations were carried out in an airlaid papermaking workshop in Tianjin, China. The theoretical calculation acquired SAP size and its existent state in indoor static airflow of this workshop. The sodium percentage content in pure SAP bulks was analyzed at first, thereafter SAP particle concentration in the air can be calculated through analyzing the sodium concentration in samples of SAP particles. By measuring the concentration of total suspending particles (TSP), respirable particles (PM10) and SAP particles, the on-site investigation proved the regional resources of particles from production process and SAP particles severely exceed the allowable human being health limit. The measurement result shows that most of the particles are SAP particles that are smaller than 10 mu m in the main production process. Most of the SAP raw material particles are changed to suspending form by inevitably extrusion and frication. Additionally, the correlation between SAP, PM10 and TSP had also been achieved to compare with that in atmospheric environment.