Abstract
Crystalline free silica is considered as a lung carcinogen and the occupational exposure
to its dust is a health hazard to workers employed in industries that involve ores of
mineral dust. In Egypt, thousands of people work under conditions of silica dust exposure
exceeding the occupational exposure limit, as a result the monitoring of this occupational
exposure to crystalline silica dust is required by government legislation. The assessment
of the later is a multi-phase process, depend on workplace measurements, quantitative
analyses of samples, and comparison of results with the permissible limits. This study
aims to investigate occupational exposure to crystalline silica dust at 22 factories in
Egypt with different industrial activities like stone cutting, glass making, ceramic, and
sand blasting. Dust samples were collected from work sites at the breathing zone using a
personal sampling pump and a size-selective cyclone and analyzed using FTIR. The sampling
period was 60–120 min. The results show that the exposure at each of the industrial
sectors is very much higher than the current national and international limits, and that
lead to a great risk of lung cancer and mortality to workers.