What Is Welding Fume? Why It Should Be Filtered?

Gases that welding produce are potentially carcinogenic!

The most popular method of welding today is mild steel welding, which is important for every industry that uses welding in its production process. Latest scientific research has shown that the gases that this method produces are potentially carcinogenic. Although we have yet to see the full effects of this finding, it is clear that the health and safety of welders and the methods by which they can be ensured will be increasingly based.

How is fume produced by welding?

Welding fume is created by heating up a metal above its boiling point. The vapors that this thermal process creates condense into fine particles, creating a plume suspended in the ambient air in essence. The welder will have to be similar to the manual welding process , due to the need for precision. This suggests that the fume plume, particles and gases will penetrate the welder ‘s breathing zone (< 30 centimeters/12 inches away from the nose and mouth), which is at serious risk of inhaling them..

Although various welding methods produce different amounts of gases, they all contain different concentrations of hazardous substances. The most popular and harmful of these are chrome, manganese , nickel, NOX and CO. Since smaller particles appear to end deeper in the lungs when inhaled, they are considered to pose the greatest health risk, along with the gases..

Welding fumes are carcinogen for humans

In April 2017, new scientific evidence was released by IARC, the International Agency for Cancer Research , showing that mild steel welding fumes can cause human lung cancer (and possibly also kidney cancer). The most immediate legislative outcome of this was that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), an organisation committed to occupational safety, reclassified mild steel welding fume as a human carcinogen in the United Kingdom.

Since general venting does not achieve the necessary emission control, the HSE has issued a change in compliance expectations, meaning that all businesses conducting welding activities must ensure effective engineering controls to prevent employees from welding exposure to fumes. HSE can no longer tolerate any welding performed without any adequate exposure control measures in place, irrespective of the duration, as there is no defined degree of safe exposure.’ (Source: www.hse.gov.uk)

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