[Occupational exposure to hexavalent chromium during aircraft painting]

Hygienists are interested in hexavalent chromium due to its genotoxic and carcinogenic effect on humans. The use of products containing hexavalent chromium is decreasing in many industrial fields because of the substitution with less-toxic compounds. In the aeronautical industry, however, the chromate are added to primer paint as a corrosion inhibitor of aircrafts surfaces: so hexavalent chromium compounds are available in many primers with a composition ranging from 10% to 13%. The application of these primers by using electrostatic guns potentially exposes painting and coating workers at high concentrations of aerosols containing Cr(VI). The aim of the present study is the evaluation of professional exposure to hexavalent chromium during aircraft painting, by adopting both environmental personal sampling and biological monitoring. To valuate workers exposure levels the personal measurements results have been compared with the exposure limit values (TLV-TWA) and the urinary chromium contents with the biological exposure indices (IBE). Moreover the strategy of coupling environmental sampling with biological monitoring seems to be a useful instrument to measure the validity of the individual protection devices.