Assessment of workers' exposure to antimony trioxide in Korea

Abstract

The assessment of workers' exposure to antimony trioxide was conducted for the workers at three antimony trioxide factories located in Kyeonggi-do, Chungnam, Cheonnam, Korea during the period of September 4 to October 28, 1995. The objective of this study was to investigate any exposure of workers to antimony. The results were as follows: 1. Mean of the total antimony concentration in the air near the workplace was 0.0223 mg/m(3) in the oxidation part and 0.2806 mg/m(3) in the packing part (p<0.05). 2. Mean of the respirable antimony concentration in air near the workplace was 0.0028 mg/m(3) in oxidation and 0.0034 mg/m(3) in packing (p>0.05). 3. The average urinary antimony level in the oxidation part was 0.1827 mg/g creatinine and that of packing part was 0.1371 mg/g creatinine. But they were not statistically significant (p>0.05).