To improve public health and their living environment, many paint companies have been applying for green building material certification. However, much of the spray-painting products that are commonly used are solvent-based paints, which are much difficult to be certified as green building materials. In addition, the content and concentration of toxic metals in the pigments used in the paint products vary according to product color. Furthermore, workers exposed to inhalable metallic paints emitted by spray-painting processes may experience long-term adverse health effects. Therefore, this study measures concentrations of 13 metallic elements in terms of particle size in the ambient air at a spray-painting workplace in an industrial equipment manufacturing plant.

This study involved the paint-spraying workplace of an industrial ventilation equipment manufacture plant in central Taiwan. The anti-rust paint and finishing coats of solvent-based paints were applied in the workplace by a pneumatic paint brush. The air was sampled for paint dusts by collecting the particulate phase of metals for the workers’ exposure using mix cellulose ester filters (MCE) and sampling pumps. Metallic particles were analyzed using an inductively coupled plasma with atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). The mean concentration of lead (Pb) in the spray- painting workplace was 0.298±0.154 mg/m³, exceeding the 8-h permissible exposure limit (PEL-TWA) of 0.05mg/m³. The mean Pb concentration of respirable dust among the short-term sampling was 0.362 ±0.297mg/m³, exceeding the short-term exposure limit of 0.15mg/m³ for lead.

The mean percentage contributions of Pb content in respirable dusts and thoracic dusts within total dusts were 16.37% and 57.04%, respectively, indicating that a mean of 57.04% of Pb content in thoracic dusts passing into the lung below the larynx as a result of each worker’s breathing. The International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization has classified lead into Group 2B (possibly carcinogenic to humans). Animal experiments have verified that exposing rats to lead inhibits their semen viability and mobility, although this has not been confirmed in human subject research. However, this study suggested that proper personal protection equipment should be worn by workers in a workplace where solvent-based anti-corrosive paint spraying is performed.