Analyzing the Efficiency of Portable vs. Stationary Fume Extractors
The fumes from welding are very dangerous. They’re a mixture of various materials, including particles from the electrodes, the flux, the metals being welded, coatings on the filler, and other materials. This can include silicas, metal silicates, fluoride fumes, steel additives like chromium, nickel, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, titanium, cobalt, copper, and others, hexavalent chromium from stainless steel, oils, rust inhibitors, zinc – the list goes on.
Needless to say, breathing in any of this is awful.
“Metal fume fever is a disease most often associated with welders. Welding may cause pulmonary inflammation from the submicron particles of metal oxides in the fumes. Most often, the metal oxide is zinc oxide, but cadmium and manganese and their oxides are also present in some welding processes. Metal fume fever presents as a flu-like syndrome with fever, malaise, bronchospasm, and bi-weekly variations in severity. Symptoms are classically weakest on Sundays and strongest after returning to work on Mondays and Tuesdays.” – NCBI.
Metal Fume Fever is just one of the many hazards of welding. Other respiratory hazards, particularly prolonged and continued exposure, can include lung cancers and more. For the health, happiness, and continued productivity of your welding operators, you need some means of protecting them from those fumes.
While masking is a good idea, you also want to do anything you can to remove those hazardous fumes from the environment. OSHA has specifications for ventilation, but one thing that can help is a fume extractor.
