Emission of airborne fibers from mechanically impacted asbestos-cement sheets and concentration of fibrous aerosol in the home environment in Upper Silesia, Poland

The emission rate (S) of fibers released from asbestos-cement plates due to mechanical impact was determined experimentally. The emission rate has been defined as a number of fibers (F) emitted from a unit area (m2) due to the unit impact energy (J). For fiber longer than 5 μm the obtained surface emission factor for asbestos-cement slabs slightly increased with deteriorating surface, changing from 2.7 × 103 F/(m2 J) for samples with a very good surface to 6.9 × 103 F/(m2 J) for the sample with worn surface (in the SI system the emission rate unit should be (m−2 J−1)). The emission rate for short fibers (L ≤ 5 μm) was little higher compared with emission of long fibers for all studied asbestos materials. The averaged emission rate for all studied samples was about 5000 and 6000 of long and short fibers, respectively, emitted per square meter (because of the impact energy equal to 1 J). The dominating population of emitted fibers ranged from 2 to around 8 μm in length. The second part of this work constitutes the report on the concentration of airborne respirable fibers, and their length distribution in two different groups of homes in Upper Silesia, Poland. Mean concentration level of the respirable fibers, longer than 5 μm, was found to be 850 F/m3 (according to the SI system the fiber concentration unit is (m−3)) in the buildings covered with asbestos-cement sheets and 280 F/m3 in the homes without asbestos-containing facades, located away from other asbestos sources. Although the laboratory and field measurements have been made by using the MIE Laser Fiber Monitor FM-7400 only, the obtained results indicate that the outdoor asbestos-cement building facades are significant sources of airborne fibers inside the dwellings in Upper Silesian towns.