鉛蓄電池廠鉛塵之生物攝取率研究

This study was conducted to characterize the
physicochemical properties of the lead
powder/dust from a lead battery plant, and
estimate their relative bioavailability. Ninety
male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed with
lead-dosed mixtures at the target doses of 5
and 10 mg/Kg BW/day, respectively, during
the specified study periods. Results shows
that lead powder for anode and the lead dust
from the cathode plate manipulating process
consisted of both lead element and lead oxide
while the other types of lead powder or dust
were found composed of lead element only.
Also, it is shown that the lead powder was
the smallest in particle size with a mode of
11~12 um, while 66%~75% of lead dust
from plate manipulating process and 27% of
that from plate cutting process were
composed of particle size less 250 um. Lead
powder for anode plate, lead dust from the
anode electrode plate manipulating process,
and from the plate cutting process were
mostly composed of lead and/or its
compounds, in terms of weight percentage.
Generally speaking, the blood lead levels
increased inversely with the particle size of
the lead powder and/or dust, and reached the
plateau level around the 4 th week for the low
dose group and about the 2 nd week for the
high dose group. At the same lead exposure
dose, the bioavailability of lead uptake vary
from 30.9% for the lead dust from anode
plate manipulating process with size range of
106um~250um to 245.1% of lead powder for
anode plate with size mode of 12 um,
depending on the lead source and the time
period of blood collection. The observations in the present study provide important
parameters for the improved risk assessment
of exposure to lead dust in the lead battery
plant, especially for inadvertent ingestion
and/or ingestion of coarse particles
transferred from the naso-pharyngeal area to
the gastro-intestinal tract.