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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2020
The present work is a small portion of a multi-disciplinary science-based study of the physicochemical properties of respirable aerosols containing beryllium. The working hypothesis is that Chronic Beryllium Disease (CBD) is by controlled dissolution of Be particles in the lung. Recent studies have shown correlations between specific Be production processes and the development of Be sensitivity and CBD. in Beryllium Oxide (BeO) production, 9.8% of the workers develop a sensitivity to Be and 4.9% develop CBD. in vitro cellular dose-response relations have been observed for BeO particles.
This study involves a characterization of BeO materials sampled from the air stream around the production process at Brush Wellman Inc. (Elmore, OH) and laboratory-prepared BeO. One purpose of this work is to determine if lab-prepared material is a good surrogate for the process-generated aerosols for cellular dissolution studies. Both materials were size-separated into six fractions using a five-stage cyclone followed by a electrostatic precipitator (ESP).