Harmful effects of airborne dust diffused from ceramic tiles during home decoration

Abstract Exposure to airborne dust from ceramic tiles usually occurs during home decoration and may cause various diseases, such as chronic bronchitis, asthma and pneumoconiosis. The hazardous effects of dust particles are associated with their particle characteristics (i.e., size distributions, shape factors and elemental composition). This study proposed a method for evaluating the harmful effects of airborne dust on decorators. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and image processing technology were used to characterize the morphology of the particles and to measure the size and size distribution of dust particles generated from cutting and grinding of ceramic tiles. In addition, the 3D natural morphology of the dust was featured by atomic force microscopy (AFM) simply. The major chemical composition of the particles was characterized qualitatively through SEM in conjunction with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). X-ray fluorescence (XRF) was used to quantitatively determine the major elements and toxic trace elements quantitatively which were not detected by EDX. Experimental results showed that 99% of the particles were