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Browsing by Author "Sweeney, Daniel Joseph"

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    Investigating the Effects of Particle Loading and Agglomeration on Respirable Coal Mine Dust Particle Classification by SEM-EDX
    Sweeney, Daniel Joseph (Virginia Tech, 2024-06-03)
    Respirable coal mine dust (RCMD) still poses serious occupational health hazards to coal miners and can lead to incurable lung diseases such as coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP, also referred to as "black lung"). Further, CWP can develop into a more severe form known as progressive massive fibrosis (PMF). There has been a resurgence of PMF since the late 1990s. Coal miners are also exposed to crystalline silica, which can lead to a lung disease known as silicosis. While coal mining related disease is on the rise, the historic dust monitoring data does not indicate such a striking resurgence. As a result, there has been an increased interest in research surrounding RCMD to understand exposure as well as prevent health effects. Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) is a powerful tool that can analyze RCMD on a particle-level. The images produced by the SEM can size and characterize morphology of micron and submicron-sized particles. In addition, the EDX can determine elemental content, which can be used to infer mineralogy. However, particle classification can be impacted by interferences due to particle loading density (PLD) and agglomeration. PLD refers to the number of particles per unit area of substrate, while agglomeration describes clustered or overlapping particles. This thesis includes two studies aimed at exploring the effects of both PLD and agglomeration on SEM-EDX analysis. Study 1 includes an investigation into the effect of PLD on RCMD classification by SEM-EDX analysis. Dust recovered from the sample parent filters under low and high PLD conditions were used to isolate the effect of PLD. The comparison between the low and high PLD filters was then used to establish modified classification criteria to correct for high PLD. When the modified criteria were then applied to RCMD particles analyzed direct-on-filter, minimal change was observed in the apparent mineralogy distributions for most samples. These results suggest that particle agglomeration may have substantial effects on the particle classification of respirable dust analyzed direct-on-filter. Study 2 includes an investigation into the effect of particle agglomeration on RCMD by SEM-EDX analysis. Automated and manual SEM-EDX analysis was performed on paired filters collected from a parent filter. The manual analysis targeted respirable silica containing agglomerates. Each pair consisted of a filter analyzed directly and a filter that underwent a recovery process to deposit dust particles onto a new filter. The mineralogy distributions from the automated analysis suggest that agglomeration affects sizing and particle classification. Based on the manual analysis, there was an apparent increase in independent silica and a decrease in respirable silica-containing agglomerates after the recovery process. A limited collection of passive samples revealed more agglomerates than on the filters that were collected using a pump and size-selector cyclone. The work in this thesis is relevant to the research efforts aimed at the resurgence of coal mining related lung diseases, as the use of SEM-EDX can characterize RCMD by geographic region, geology, and location within a mine. Future work in this area of study might look at methods to estimate PLD in the field, other dust recovery methods, and a comparison of sampling methods.