![Sawdust vendors](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Sawdust_vendors._Kashgar_markets.jpg)
Sawdust (or wood dust) is a by-product or waste product of
woodworking
Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning.
History
Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first mate ...
operations such as
saw
A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, wire, or chain with a hard toothed edge. It is used to cut through material, very often wood, though sometimes metal or stone. The cut is made by placing the toothed edge against the material and mov ...
ing,
sanding
upright=1.35, Sheets of sandpaper with different grit sizes (40 (coarse), 80, 150, 240, 600 (fine)).
Sandpaper and glasspaper are names used for a type of coated abrasive that consists of sheets of paper or cloth with abrasive material glued to ...
,
milling,
planing, and
routing. It is composed of small chippings of
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
. These operations can be performed by
woodworking machine
A Woodworking machine is a machine that is intended to process wood. These machines are usually powered by electric motors and are used extensively in woodworking. Sometimes grinding machines (used for grinding down to smaller pieces) are also cons ...
ry, portable
power tool
A power tool is a tool that is actuated by an additional power source and mechanism other than the solely manual labor used with hand tools. The most common types of power tools use electric motors. Internal combustion engines and compressed ...
s or by use of
hand tools. Wood dust is also the byproduct of certain animals, birds and insects which live in wood, such as the
woodpecker
Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. ...
and
carpenter ant
Carpenter ants (''Camponotus'' spp.) are large () ants indigenous to many forested parts of the world.
They build nests inside wood consisting of galleries chewed out with their mandibles or jaws, preferably in dead, damp wood. However, unl ...
. In some
manufacturing
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...
industries it can be a significant
fire hazard
Fire safety is the set of practices intended to reduce the destruction caused by fire. Fire safety measures include those that are intended to prevent the ignition of an uncontrolled fire and those that are used to limit the development and ef ...
and source of
occupational dust exposure
Occupational dust exposure can occur in various settings, including agriculture, forestry, and mining. Dust hazards include those that arise from handling grain and cotton, as well as from mining coal. Wood dust, commonly referred to as "sawdust" ...
.
Sawdust, as
particulates
Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The t ...
, is the main component of
particleboard
Particle board, also known as chipboard or low-density fiberboard, is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood chips and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded. Particle board is often confused with or ...
. Research on health hazards comes from the field of
occupational safety and health, and study of ventilation happens in
indoor air quality
Indoor air quality (IAQ) is the air quality within and around buildings and structures. IAQ is known to affect the health, comfort, and well-being of building occupants. Poor indoor air quality has been linked to sick building syndrome, reduce ...
engineering.
Formation
Two waste products, dust and chips, form at the working surface during woodworking operations such as sawing, milling and sanding. These operations both shatter lignified wood cells and break out whole cells and groups of cells. Shattering of wood cells creates dust, while breaking out of whole groups of wood cells creates chips. The more cell-shattering that occurs, the finer the dust particles that are produced. For example, sawing and milling are mixed cell shattering and chip forming processes, whereas sanding is almost exclusively cell shattering.
Uses
A major use of sawdust is for particleboard; coarse sawdust may be used for
wood pulp
Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibers from wood, fiber crops, waste paper, or rags. Mixed with water and other chemical or plant-based additives, pulp is the major raw mate ...
. Sawdust has a variety of other practical uses, including serving as a
mulch
A mulch is a layer of material applied to the surface of soil. Reasons for applying mulch include conservation of soil moisture, improving fertility and health of the soil, reducing weed growth and enhancing the visual appeal of the area.
A mu ...
, as an alternative to clay
cat litter
A litter box, also known as a sandbox, cat box, litter tray, cat pan, potty, pot or litter pan, is an indoor feces and urine collection box for cats, as well as rabbits, ferrets, miniature pigs, small dogs, and other pets that instinctively or ...
, or as a
fuel. Until the advent of refrigeration, it was often used in
icehouses to keep ice frozen during the summer. It has been used in
artistic displays, and as
scatter in
miniature railroad
Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale.
The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcar ...
and other models. It is also sometimes used to soak up liquid spills, allowing the spill to be easily collected or swept aside. As such, it was formerly common on barroom floors. It is used to make
Cutler's resin Cutler's resin, also known as cutler's pitch, is a waterproofing adhesive made by including wax when making a pine pitch glue. Cutler's resin commonly consists of pine pitch, beeswax and/or carnauba wax, and usually employs a filler like charcoal, ...
. Mixed with water and frozen, it forms
pykrete
Pykrete is a frozen ice composite, originally made of approximately 14% sawdust or some other form of wood pulp (such as paper) and 86% ice by weight (6 to 1 by weight). During World War II, Geoffrey Pyke proposed it as a candidate material fo ...
, a slow-melting, much stronger form of
ice
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaqu ...
.
Sawdust is used in the manufacture of
charcoal briquettes. The claim for invention of the first commercial charcoal briquettes goes to
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...
who created them from the wood scraps and sawdust produced by his automobile factory.
Food
![Wood Shavings from a Chainsaw](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Wood_Shavings_from_a_Chainsaw.jpg)
Cellulose, fibre starch that is indigestible to humans, and a filler in some low calorie foods, can be and is made from sawdust, as well as from other plant sources. While there is no documentation for the persistent rumor, based upon
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in sever ...
's novel ''
The Jungle
''The Jungle'' is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair's primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. However, most readers we ...
'', that sawdust was used as a filler in sausage, cellulose derived from sawdust was and is used for sausage casings. Sawdust-derived cellulose has also been used as a filler in bread.
When cereals were scarce, sawdust was sometimes an ingredient in Kommissbrot.
Auschwitz concentration camp survivor, Dr.
Miklós Nyiszli
Miklós Nyiszli (17 June 1901 – 5 May 1956) was a Hungarian prisoner of Jewish heritage at Auschwitz concentration camp. Nyiszli, his wife, and young daughter, were transported to Auschwitz in June 1944. Upon his arrival, Nyiszli vo ...
, reports in ''Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account'' that the subaltern medical staff, who served
Dr. Josef Mengele
, allegiance =
, branch = Schutzstaffel
, serviceyears = 1938–1945
, rank = '' SS''-''Hauptsturmführer'' (Captain)
, servicenumber =
, battles =
, unit =
, awards =
, commands =
, s ...
, subsisted on "bread made from wild
chestnuts
The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.
The unrelated ...
sprinkled with sawdust."
Health hazards
Airborne sawdust and sawdust accumulations present a number of health and safety hazards. Wood dust becomes a potential health problem when, for example, the wood particles, from processes such as sanding, become airborne and are inhaled. Wood dust is a known human
carcinogen
A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive subs ...
. Certain woods and their dust contain toxins that can produce severe allergic reactions.
Breathing airborne wood dust may cause allergic respiratory symptoms, mucosal and non-allergic respiratory symptoms, and cancer. In the US, lists of carcinogenic factors are published by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). All these organisations recognize wood dust as carcinogenic in relation to the nasal cavities and paranasal sinuses.
![Japanese handplane (kanna) with wood shavings](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Japanese_handplane_%28kanna%29_with_wood_shavings.jpg)
People can be exposed to wood dust in the workplace by breathing it in, skin contact, or eye contact. The
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration'' (OSHA ) is a large regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. Congress established the agenc ...
(OSHA) has set the legal limit (
permissible exposure limit
The permissible exposure limit (PEL or OSHA PEL) is a legal limit in the United States for exposure of an employee to a chemical substance or physical agent such as high level noise. Permissible exposure limits are established by the Occupational ...
) for wood dust exposure in the workplace as 15 mg/m
3 total exposure and 5 mg/m
3 respiratory exposure over an 8-hour workday. The
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, ) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. NIOSH is part of the C ...
(NIOSH) has set a
recommended exposure limit
A recommended exposure limit (REL) is an occupational exposure limit that has been recommended by the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The REL is a level that NIOSH believes would be protective of worker safet ...
(REL) of 1 mg/m
3 over an 8-hour workday.
Water-borne
bacteria
Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...
digest organic material in leachate, but use up much of the available oxygen. This high "biological oxygen demand" can suffocate fish and other organisms. There is an equally detrimental effect on beneficial bacteria, so it is not at all advisable to use sawdust within home aquariums, as was once done by hobbyists seeking to save some expense on
activated charcoal.
Explosions and fire
Sawdust is flammable and accumulations provide a ready source of fuel. Airborne sawdust can be ignited by sparks or even heat accumulation and result in explosions.
Environmental effects
At
sawmill
A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...
s, unless reprocessed into particleboard, burned in a sawdust burner, or used to make heat for other milling operations, sawdust may collect in piles and add harmful
leachates into local water systems, creating an
environmental hazard
An environmental hazard is a substance, state or event which has the potential to threaten the surrounding natural environment or adversely affect people's health, including pollution and natural disasters such as storms and earthquakes. It can i ...
. This has placed small sawyers and environmental agencies in a deadlock.
Questions about the science behind the determination of sawdust being an environmental hazard remain for sawmill operators (though this is mainly with finer particles), who compare wood residuals to dead trees in a forest. Technical advisors have reviewed some of the environmental studies, but say most lack standardized methodology or evidence of a direct impact on
wildlife
Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...
. They don't take into account large
drainage area
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...
s, so the amount of material that is getting into the water from the site in relation to the total drainage area is minuscule.
Other scientists have a different view, saying the "dilution is the solution to pollution" argument is no longer accepted in environmental science. The decomposition of a tree in a forest is similar to the impact of sawdust, but the difference is of scale. Sawmills may be storing thousands of cubic metres of
wood residues in one place, so the issue becomes one of concentration.
But of larger concern are substances such as
lignins and
fatty acid
In chemistry, particularly in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with an aliphatic chain, which is either saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an unbranched chain of an even number of carbon atoms, ...
s that protect trees from predators while they are alive, but can leach into water and poison wildlife. Those types of things remain in the tree and, as the tree decays, they slowly are broken down. But when sawyers are processing a large volume of wood and large concentrations of these materials permeate into the runoff, the
toxicity
Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a subs ...
they cause is harmful to a broad range of organisms.
Wood flour
![A waste wood powder](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/A_waste_wood_powder.jpg)
Wood flour is finely pulverized
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
that has a consistency fairly equal to sand or sawdust, but can vary considerably, with particles ranging in dimensions from a fine powder to roughly that of a grain of rice. Most wood flour manufacturers are able to create batches of wood flour that have the same consistency throughout. All high quality wood flour is made from
hardwoods because of its durability and strength. Very low grade wood flour is occasionally made from sapless
softwoods such as
pine
A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts ...
or
fir.
Applications
Wood flour is commonly used as a
filler in thermosetting resins such as
bakelite, and in
linoleum
Linoleum, sometimes shortened to lino, is a floor covering made from materials such as solidified linseed oil (linoxyn), pine resin, ground cork dust, sawdust, and mineral fillers such as calcium carbonate, most commonly on a burlap or canva ...
floor coverings. Wood flour is also the main ingredient in wood/plastic composite building products such as decks and roofs. Prior to 1920, wood flour was used as the filler in ¼-inch thick
Edison Diamond Discs.
Wood flour has found a use in plugging small through-wall holes in leaking main condenser (
heat exchanger
A heat exchanger is a system used to transfer heat between a source and a working fluid. Heat exchangers are used in both cooling and heating processes. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or they may be in direct conta ...
) tubes at electrical power generating stations via injecting small quantities of the wood flour into the cooling water supply lines. Some of the injected wood flour clogs the small holes while the remainder exits the station in a relatively environmentally benign fashion.
Because of its adsorbent properties it has been used as a cleaning agent for removing grease or oil in various occupations. It has also been noted for its ability to remove
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
contamination from water.
Wood flour can be used as a binder in
grain filler A grain filler (pore filler or paste wood filler) is a woodworking product that is used to achieve a smooth-textured wood finish by filling pores in the wood grain. It is used particularly on open grained woods such as oak, mahogany and walnut whe ...
compounds.
Sources
Large quantities of wood flour are frequently to be found in the waste from woodworking and furniture companies. An
adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an existing building for a purpose other than which it was originally built or designed for. It is also known as recycling and conversion. Adaptive reuse is an effective strategy for optimizing the o ...
to which this material can be directed is
composting.
Wood flour can be subject to
dust explosion
A dust explosion is the rapid combustion of fine particles suspended in the air within an enclosed location. Dust explosions can occur where any dispersed powdered combustible material is present in high-enough concentrations in the atmosphere o ...
s if not cared for and disposed of properly.
Respirable particulates
As with all airborne
particulates
Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The t ...
, wood dust particle sizes are classified with regard to effect on the human respiratory system. For this classification, the unit for measurement of particle sizes is the micrometre or micron (μm), where 1 micrometre = 1 micron. Particles below 50 μm are not normally visible to the naked human eye. Particles of concern for human respiratory health are those <100 μm (where the symbol < means ‘less than’).
Zhang (2004) has defined the size of indoor
particulates
Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The t ...
according to respiratory fraction:
Particles which precipitate in the vicinity of the mouth and eyes, and get into the organism, are defined as the inhalable fraction, that is total dust. Smaller fractions, penetrating into the non-cartilage respiratory tract, are defined as respirable dust. Dust emitted in the wood industry is characterized by the dimensional disintegration of particles up to 5 μm, and that
is why they precipitate mostly in the nasal cavity, increasing the risk of cancer of the upper respiratory tract.
Exposure
The parameter most commonly used to characterize exposures to wood dust in air is total wood dust concentration, in mass per unit volume. In countries that use the metric system, this is usually measured in mg/m
3 (milligram per cubic metre)
A study to estimate occupational exposure to inhalable wood dust by country, industry, the level of exposure and type of wood dust in 25 member states of the European Union (EU-25) found that in 2000–2003, about 3.6 million workers (2.0% of the employed EU-25 population) were occupationally exposed to inhalable wood dust. The highest exposure levels were estimated to occur in the construction sector and furniture industry.
Cancer
Wood dust is known to be a human carcinogen, based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity from studies in humans. It has been demonstrated through human epidemiologic studies that exposure to wood dust increases the occurrence of cancer of the nose (nasal cavities and paranasal sinuses). An association of wood dust exposure and cancers of the nose has been observed in numerous case reports, cohort studies, and case control studies specifically addressing nasal cancer.
Ventilation
To lower the concentration of airborne dust concentrations during woodworking, dust extraction systems are used. These can be divided into two types. The first are local exhaust ventilation systems, the second are room ventilation systems. Use of personal
respirator
A respirator is a device designed to protect the wearer from inhaling hazardous atmospheres including fumes, vapours, gases and particulate matter such as dusts and airborne pathogens such as viruses. There are two main categories of respi ...
s, a form of
personal protective equipment
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, e ...
, can also isolate workers from dust.
Local exhaust
Local exhaust ventilation (LEV) systems rely on air pulled with a suction force through piping systems from the point of dust formation to a waste disposal unit. They consist of four elements: dust hoods at the point of dust formation, ventilation ducts, an air cleaning device (waste separator or dust collector) and an air moving device (a fan, otherwise known as an impeller). The air, containing dust and chips from the woodworking operation, is sucked by an impeller. The impeller is usually built into, or placed close to, the waste disposal unit, or
dust collector
A dust collector is a system used to enhance the quality of air released from industrial and commercial processes by collecting dust and other impurities from air or gas. Designed to handle high-volume dust loads, a dust collector system consists ...
.
Guidelines of performance for woodworking LEV systems exist, and these tie into occupational air quality regulations that exist in many countries. The LEV guidelines often referred to are those set by the ACIAH.
Low volume/high velocity
Low-volume/high-velocity (LVHV) capture systems are specialised types of LEV that use an extractor hood designed as an integral part of the tool or positioned very close to the operating point of the cutting tool. The hood is designed to provide high capture velocities, often greater than 50 m/s (10,000 fpm) at the contaminant release point. This high velocity is accompanied by airflows often less than 0.02m3/s (50 cfm) resulting from the small face area of the hood that is used. These systems have come into favour for portable power tools, although adoption of the technology is not widespread. Festool is one manufacturer of portable power tools using LVHV ventilation integrated into the tool design.
Room
If suitably designed, general ventilation can also be used as a control of airborne dust. General ventilation can often help reduce skin and clothing contamination, and dust deposition on surfaces.
WHO, 1999. Hazard Prevention and Control in the Work Environment: Airborne Dust. WHO/SDE/OEH/99.14. Geneva: World Health Organization, Department of Protection of the Human Environment, Occupational and Environmental Health. p. 98.
/ref>
See also
* Dust collection system
A dust collection system is an air quality improvement system used in industrial, commercial, and home production shops to improve breathable air quality and safety by removing particulate matter from the air and environment. Dust collection syste ...
* Swarf
References
External links
BillPentz.com: Dust Collection Research.
WHO 2005. ''Air Quality Guidelines for Europe'', 2nd ed. WHO regional publications. European series, No. 91. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe.
{{Authority control
Environmental chemistry
Saws
Waste
Woodworking
IARC Group 1 carcinogens
Wood fuel
Wood products
Dust