Field Comparison of Respirable Dust Samplers

Six airborne dust sampling systems were compared side-by-side, as static samplers, in an Ontario uranium mine to evaluate their relative efficiency in an underground environment. Duplicate samplers were included to verify reproducibility. The effect of changing the niters media was evaluated for some of the samplers. Two samplers were also compared in a gold mine. A total of 142 long-term duration (6–8 h) samples were collected. The nylon cyclone is shown to be an acceptable respirable dust sampler for the Ontario hard-rock mining environment. Furthermore, it gave results comparable to those of the SIMPEDS metal cyclone. The SIMPEDS and BCIRA metal cyclones, which were expected to give equivalent results, measured significantly different dust concentrations. The MRE gave a higher dust concentration measurement than the nylon cyclone, although the samplers appeared to be statistically equivalent.