Carbon nanotubes, a material with new drugs, electronics, and energy-efficient batteries, the risk to workers using them for the development of mesothelioma. Nanotubes or carbon are short and curly or long thin. Long, thin carbon nanotubes are comparable to asbestos fibers under the microscope in shape and size. A recent study has shown that carbon nanotubes behave like asbestos fibers into the body, and have the same potential for the birth> Mesothelioma.
Mesothelioma is a slow growing cancer of mesothelium, the tissue along the lungs and abdominal organs and the abdomen itself. It is for the time being diagnosed with mesothelioma, is so advanced that it is always fatal. Life expectancy after diagnosis can be a matter of months, sometimes a few years ago. There are treatments for symptoms of mesothelioma, but there is no cure.
A half century of medical research has foundthat the main cause of mesothelioma is the inhalation of asbestos fibers under the microscope. The fibers are so dangerous, because they are thin enough to be easily inhaled, and once inhaled, is present in lung tissue. The body has compensation mechanisms to foreign substances by the lungs, but also because of its length, the asbestos fibers are not easily removed and can remain for decades, so that changes at the cellular level leads to mesothelioma.
Carbon nanotubes are very lightWeight but extremely strong. Because of these characteristics, are now increasingly used in many high-tech applications. But for more than a decade, concern is growing among researchers of nanotechnology on the health effects of working with nanotubes, in particular the effects of their inhaled.
In the study, published recently in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied the effects of asbestos fibers released long and short, long and short nanotubesSoot in mice. The materials were in the abdominal cavity of mice, when injected developed mesothelioma, the results from the abdominal method, the effect in the lung to anticipate. The response of mice to carbon nanotubes has long been the same response to asbestos fibers along with both materials, the mice showed pathological changes in their tissues, mesothelioma intuitive.
The study requires further research on the EnvironmentHealth and Safety Risk, nanotubes. It is not clear how much risk by inhalation of the existing production process, and if these nanotubes, once inhaled, it would represent themselves in the lung tissue. Producers need to know if their processes of nanotubes to allow the air and, if so, what safety equipment is needed to protect workers from inhalation. Disposal of materials, carbon nanotubes long fiber raises similar questions about safety.
MajorSupporters of security in the United States, government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA and the safety and health administration, OSHA. Neither is currently funding for safety studies of carbon nanotubes.
The study was only the diameter and length of the fibers of carbon nanotubes. Many other questions still, more than the nanotubes, which combine other elements with carbon, and the impact on human health of these compounds.
Nanotube Technologymanufacturing sector is still in its infancy, and the pressure to use these versatile materials will be huge. This is the time to establish what are the effects on health and environment of these substances, and the necessary guarantees. If not, a new generation of American workers face the prospect of a fatal cancer and preventable.
บทความ
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น