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China has obtained brilliant achievements in economy in the course of reform and opening to outside world for almost 20 years, in the meantime, the living standard of Chinese people has also been changed substantially, from the satisfaction of having adequate food and clothing to the emphasis of life quality and health. The job is an important basis of supplying the basic life guarantee, and its conditions also affect the health and safety of the workers. The occupational disease rate has remained higher for more than 50 years since China was founded, and China is still retaining the record of the largest pneumoconiosis country in the world on its way to become an economic superpower. Various harmful pollutants exist at all work sites, of which the main pathway to damage the human body is the respiratory system (about 90%), so it is necessary to create some scientific individual respirators to protect the laborers’ health and safety, and to reduce the occupational disease patients.
Pneumoconiosis is a great threat to life and safety of the workers, and it can bring about immense losses to the national economy as well. According to the incomplete statistics, annual direct losses due to the pneumoconiosis can reach up to 8 billion Yuan, accompanied by the terrible political affects.
By the end of year 2000, China has totaled 0.558 million pneumoconiosis cases, among them 0.133 million dead, with the dead rate of 23.85%, and now 0.425 million patients. Attention should be paid to the upward trend of pneumoconiosis cases. According to the statistics made by the Ministry of Public Health, the new cases exceeded ten thousand, up to 10505 in 2001, the total reached 0.569 million cases, the increase rate was 15% compared with the last year. The increase rate was 16.4% of the year 2002 compared with the year 2001. Among the total amount of the occupational diseases, pneumoconiosis accounts for 82.6%, on the first place in the occupational disease list.
The abovementioned shocking data indicate that the task of prevention and cure of the occupational diseases is very hard in China, especially for the pneumoconiosis. In view of the basic medical sciences, it can be asserted that the pneumoconiosis is incurable, the only way to protect the workers’ health is the control of the contact of the workers with dusts, in which it is the best to improve the working conditions by use of advanced dust removal technologies. Recently, it is difficult to change the whole working conditions by the dust removal technologies, so it is reasonable to create the advanced individual protective outfits with the application of modern science and technology, as the protection of the workers is very important, direct, and broad.
The gauge mask has being used in the respiratory protection in China for many years, of which the dust removal rate is lower than 30%, and its dustproof function is trivial, so it is one of the main reasons for China to be the large pneumoconiosis country. In recent years, the gauge mask is strictly prohibited to be used as the dustproof mask in China, although the high rate compound dustproof mask has been used in some enterprises, which can be regarded as a great progress, its disadvantages still exist. For example, the filtering dustproof masks cannot adhere to the faces and noses of the workers tightly, the tiny dust can penetrate into the mask, and then into the lung. Furthermore, it is difficult for the workers with the masks to breathe at work, especially at heavy manual work, and their work efficiencies fall down, some of them even throw the masks away, so their bodies are hurt badly. It is obvious that the traditional respiratory protective outfits have various defects and need innovation.
A series of portable powered air purifying respirators has been manufactured by Shenyang Baoerfu Technology Co., Ltd, which are patented nationally, the patent numbers: ZL03214048.7、ZL03214047.9. The respirator is composed of mask, filter, fan, rechargeable Ni-H battery and charger, etc. the mask includes the head shield type and safety helmet assembling type, the latter can be used with any helmet, which is simple in structure, convenient for assembling. The mask adheres well to the worker’s face, its PC transparent screen is impact resistant, and can be turn upward freely. The filter has the function of dust and poison removal, with which the large capacity of filtering materials. The rechargeable Ni-H battery is of lightweight, suitable for long time usage, of more than 700 times charges, of 8 hours continuous power supply after being fully charged. The high performance DC fan has a long life of 20000 hours of continuous running, with high rotate speed and low noise, and its concealed air inlet does not stir the fallen dust, its capacity is 170L/Min., the dew forming on the screen can be avoided by the downward airflow. The polluted air sucked by the fan is purified through the filtering materials, which can absorb dusts and poisons, and the purified air flows through the air hose downward into the face chamber. The respirator is compact, easy to use, and convenient for assembling, disassembling and replacement of the filtering materials and other parts.
Tested by National Labor Protection Appliance Quality Supervision & Test Center, the protective effect of Baoerfu respirators has come up to the first level of national trade standard, of which the costs are low, the prices are lower more than those of the like, and the practical functions are almost the same as the like. The respirators can be applied in many dusty and poisonous industries, such as mining, public sanitation, thermal power plants, railway projects, rock smashing and road paving, chemicals, etc. and with which the working conditions can be improved, and the work efficiency can be increased, so the respirators are suitable for the actual situations of China.
The disadvantage of the traditional individual protective respirators is that the pressure in the mask is negative, as a result, the breathing resistance is very high, and the air tightness is trivial, the tiny dusts can go into the workers’ lungs through the gaps of the masks. The advantage of Baoerfu respirators is that the pressure in the mask is positive, which is higher than that of the outside, so the polluted air cannot go into the chamber through the gaps. The advanced filtering materials are also applied in the respirators with the filtering precision of 0.3μm, and the tiny dusts, bacteria and viruses can be removed or obstructed. It is obvious that Baoerfu respirators superior to the traditional ones.
It is predictable that more and more Baoerfu respirators will be selected for the prevention and cure of the occupational diseases, especially the pneumoconiosis, and it is believable that this new type of positive pressure respirators will play an important role in the future.
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