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EVALUATION OF BIOAEROSOL EXPOSURES DURING CONDITIONING OF BIOFILTER ORGANIC MEDIA BEDS
Citation:
Barth*, E F., N. Talbott, R. Gable, AND S. Richter. EVALUATION OF BIOAEROSOL EXPOSURES DURING CONDITIONING OF BIOFILTER ORGANIC MEDIA BEDS. APPLIED OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HYGIENE 17(1):10-14, (2002).
Description:
Biological media air filters (biofilters) are currently being used for the treatment of inorganic and organic gasses from sewage treatment plants, industrial processes, and remediation systems. The media may be organic material such as comost, wood chips, or synthetic plastic media, each with a large surface area for microorganism growth and activity. Evaluations have been done for potential particulate and bioaerosol exposures from a biofilter unit process used to treat hydrogen sulfide gas generated from a primary sludge settling unit process. Health concerns were raised regarding the possibility of adverse health effects ot maintenance workers during conditioning of the biofilter compost-like media beds. Conditioning activities may include in-situ re-arrangement of the existing media, removal from the tank/surface drying/reinsertion of the existing media, or complete removal of and replacement with new. The expected agents for adverse health effects associated with this unit process are respirable particulate dust and bioaerosols, that may contain viable bacteria, fungi, as well as endotoxin. Mixed dust from the compost media bed may cause irritation of pre-existing health conditons such as asthma, chronic lung disease, and some skin conditons, as well as causation of new health problems such as inhalation fever, occupational asthma, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, skin rashes and/or skin infections, and upper or lower respiratory infections. Air samples were taken immediately before and during a simulation of the "conditioning" procedure of one of the two compost beds.