Effects of rare earth elements on working environment and health of sparaying operators for agricultural use

  Objective   To explore the effects of rare earth elements(REEs)in agricultural use on working environment and health of spraying operators.

  Methods   An orchard far from rare earths mine in the hilly land of south China was selected to carry out monitoring the levels of exposed rare earths in surroundings sprayed with agricultural-use rare earths at the concentration of 0.5 g/kg.30 operators in the orchard were chosen at random to perform investigations and were examined with self-contrasts between before and after their spraying work.The samples'REEs were determined by inductively coupled plasma source mass pectrometry(ICP-MS).

  Results   Rare earths levels in the natural surroundings in the non-rare-earth-mine hilly land in south China were as follows: (316.78±74.63)μg/g in soil, (51.33±29.93)ng/m³ in air, 0.0011μg/g in water and(21.13±10.49)μg/g in vegetation.The content of rare earths in blood of human body was(1.89±0.57)ng/ml.During spraying operation for 8 h, the content of rare earths taken in through respiratory tract was(5713.5063±786.7403)ng, and at this time, the blood rare earths content was(2.7038±0.7303)ng/ml.There were no residual rare earths after spraying 24 h in soil, 1 h and 24 h in air.Argricultural-use rare earths had certain effects on the mucous membrane in the respiratory tract of the operators, which caused congestion in the throat and nasal cavity.

  Conclusion   The agricultural-use rare earths at lower concentration would produce a certain biololgical response, which should be pay more attention in the future study.