Advancing Occupational Hygiene Monitoring Through Technology: Nanozen Pilot Project
Presented by:
Corrine Balcaen, CIH - Director, Occupational Health & Hygiene of Teck Resources
Teresa Corboy, CIH - Occupational Hygienist of Teck Highland Valley Copper
Dan Sarkany, CIH - Lead Hygienist at Teck Coal
Teck Resources has a well established Industrial Hygiene program with traditional methodology to sample and evaluate worker exposures to particulates. However, given different operational needs and longer lab turnaround time with traditional samples, it becomes more difficult to provide fit for purpose recommendations with spike exposures.
As a result, Teck Resources developed a pilot project to test the efficacy of real time particulate sampling equipment to see if additional information can be obtained. Similar Exposure Groups (SEGs) were established within Teck’s operation teams to participate in this pilot project. The real time particulate sampling equipment utilized was the Dustcount 9000 by Nanozen, coupled with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and body camera. All information were then combined using the evade software to combine data log from real time sampling equipment to body camera to identify potential particulate exposure during a worker’s workday.
Results from the pilot project allowed the Teck IH team to identify specific tasks where exposure is elevated. For instance, for the SEG Pit Utility, it was identified the exposure to particulate occurred when workers are driving in light duty vehicles with windows down. This allowed the IH team to potentially make more fit for purpose recommendations. The real time pilot project also raises worker’s awareness for exposures through review of the body cam footage and real time data log.
The next steps for the Teck IH Team is to operationalize the pilot project to the bigger company with software and systems integration, additional operation buy in, and expansion of the technology for monitoring to other SEGs. Thank you Corrine, Teresa, and Dan for sharing your findings with us!
The recording of the presentation will be uploaded soon to the AIHA BC Yukon website.
