NIOSH Evaluates Metals Exposures at Manufacturing Facility

A new NIOSH health hazard evaluation (HHE) report describes exposures to metals at a facility where additive manufacturing machines were demonstrated for potential customers. The report is dated February 2025 but only recently became available on the agency’s website.

The machines at the facility featured two types of additive manufacturing processes: powder bed fusion (PBF), which uses lasers to melt a layer of metal powder into a moveable bed; and directed energy deposition (DED), which uses a nozzle to deposit and melt metal powder onto a build platform. When NIOSH personnel visited the facility in March and May 2023, employees were engaged in printing metal parts, sieving powder, de-powdering printed parts, and post-processing tasks.

NIOSH found exposures to airborne particles in the PBF room and in some production areas. Metal powders had migrated through the facility due to airflow patterns, and some employees’ skin and clothing were contaminated with metals whether they were working directly with metal powders or not. Powders found in the facility included aluminum, hexavalent chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, molybdenum, nickel, tin, titanium, and vanadium.

While exposures were below occupational exposure limits, NIOSH recommended several actions for the facility to better protect workers. These included enhancing ventilation, redesigning processes to contain dust, encouraging employees to wash their hands to remove metals from skin, using wet cleaning to remove metals from surfaces, and requiring employees to wear powered air-purifying respirators in certain areas.

For more information, download the HHE report (PDF) from the NIOSH website.