UC professor evaluates dust from dangerous powders

Chemical manufacturing byproducts like powders can be dangerous when inhaled. Knowing how these sometimes hazardous powders transform into aerosol is important in preventing long-term health problems.

“There is a risk of inhalation by whoever is handling these powders, so it’s necessary to classify them and determine which powders can be aerosolized,” University of Cincinnati professor Milind Jog said.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recently awarded Jog a grant to assess current methods for evaluating these powders.

A rotating drum apparatus is a widely used instrument to evaluate powder dustiness, or the tendency of a powder to aerosolize. Imagine a scaled-down version of the back of a cement truck.

Researchers place powders at the bottom of a drum, slowly rotate the drum and add a crossflow of air. The powders that aerosolize from this airflow are collected by a filter at the opposite end of the drum.

The problem with these drums, however, is that you can’t see what happens to the powders within the drum during aerosolization. Without this knowledge, a total understanding of these powders is limited. 

Jog and his doctoral student, Hongyu Chen, are solving this problem through computational fluid dynamics modeling. With computational simulations, they can model the interaction between air flow and the particles, as well as the size differences of certain particles and their likelihood of being aerosolized.