Abstract Researchers and legislators have both claimed the necessity to standardize the exposure assessment of polymer nanocomposites throughout their life cycle. In the present study we have developed and compared three different and independent operational protocols to investigate changes in particle emission behavior of mechanically degraded polypropylene (PP) samples containing different fillers, including talc and two types of nanoclays (wollastonite-WO- and montmorillonite-MMT-) relative to not reinforced PP. Our results have shown that the mechanical degradation of PP, PP-Talc, PP-WO and PP-MMT samples causes the release of nano-sized particles. However, the three protocols investigated, simulating industrial milling and drilling and household drilling, have produced different figures for particles generated. Results suggest that it is not possible to describe the effects of adding nano-sized modifiers to PP by a single trend that applies consistently across all different protocols. Differences observed might be attributed to a variety of causes, including the specific operational parameters selected for sample degradation and the instrumentation used for airborne particle release characterization. In particular, a streamlined approach for future assessments providing a measure for released particles as a function of the quantity of removed material would seem useful, which can provide a reference benchmark for the variations in the number of particles emitted across a wider range of different mechanical processes.

中文翻译：

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聚丙烯-纳米粘土纳米复合材料机械降解三种情况下的粒子发射测量

摘要 研究人员和立法者都声称有必要对聚合物纳米复合材料整个生命周期的暴露评估进行标准化。在本研究中，我们开发并比较了三种不同且独立的操作方案，以研究含有不同填料的机械降解聚丙烯 (PP) 样品的颗粒排放行为变化，包括滑石和两种类型的纳米粘土（硅灰石-WO-和蒙脱石-MMT -) 相对于未增强PP。我们的结果表明，PP、PP-Talc、PP-WO 和 PP-MMT 样品的机械降解会导致纳米颗粒的释放。然而，研究的三个协议，模拟工业铣削和钻孔以及家用钻孔，产生了不同的颗粒生成数字。结果表明，不可能通过在所有不同协议中一致适用的单一趋势来描述向 PP 添加纳米级改性剂的效果。观察到的差异可能归因于多种原因，包括为样品降解选择的特定操作参数和用于空气中颗粒释放表征的仪器。特别是，未来评估的简化方法提供释放粒子作为去除材料数量的函数的度量似乎很有用，这可以为更广泛的不同机械装置中释放的粒子数量的变化提供参考基准。过程。