Toxicity assessment of ash and dust from handmade gold jewelry manufacturing workshops in Bangladesh.
Traditionally, handmade gold jewelry played a very important role in the cultural heritage of Bangladesh. Goldsmiths still are partially using ancient manufacturing process with coal fire, candle flame blowing, and nitric and sulfuric acid treatments. Such process leads to the contamination of workplace with the dust of toxic metals, acidic vapors, and particles of different natures. To evaluate contamination by particulate matter (PM), the passive particle collectors were installed in different manufacturing units for a period of 85 days at Tanti Bazar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The laser diffraction analysis of the samples collected at the soldering units showed significant amounts of particulates, both PM10 and PM 2.5, and also nanoparticles in both nucleation and accumulation mode. SEM/EDS analysis revealed partially melted micro blebs that contain a very high concentration of Fe along with Cu. The toxic elements were detected with ICP analysis and include higher concentrations of cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), and arsenic (As). It is notable that detection of arsenic contamination was unexpected since raw materials used for jewelry making should not have any arsenic.
['Sikder|Arif M|AM|', 'Hossain|Tanvir|T|', 'Khan|Manzurul H|MH|', 'Aziz Hasan|M|M|', 'Fakhruzzaman|M|M|', 'Turner|Joseph B|JB|', 'Pestov|Dmitry|D|', 'McCallister|Leigh S|LS|', 'Maudood Elahi|K|K|']
D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational D001151:Arsenic D001459:Bangladesh D002104:Cadmium D002857:Chromium D003031:Coal D004391:Dust D004784:Environmental Monitoring D006046:Gold D000075322:Heavy Metal Poisoning D055498:Jewelry D010316:Particle Size D052638:Particulate Matter D011041:Poisoning
Dust Handmade gold jewelry Particulate matter Nanoparticles Toxic elements Smelting