A review on work environment quality in shop floor: Impact of aerosols

Cutting fluids are primarily used for flushing away chips during machining operations while providing cooling, increasing lubrication, and reducing corrosion. Benefits of using cutting fluids in metal removal are increased tool life, better machine life, effective chip management, and enhanced surface finish. Such benefits result in wanton consumption of cutting fluids in machine shops. Treatment and disposal of cutting fluids incur substantial costs, where at least two-thirds of used cutting fluids have to be treated and disposed each year. Usually cutting fluids are bases of chlorine, sulphur, and phosphorus, which gradually deteriorate air quality in shop floor, thereby incurring health and safety concerns. Worker health problems like rashes, eye or lung irritations, etc. occur due to prolonged cutting fluids exposure. Usage of environmentally friendly and safe cutting fluids combined with effective fluid application methods helps to mitigate these issues. This paper reviews the state of the art research in this area, focusing particularly on eco-friendly cutting fluids, and application techniques that minimizes cutting fluid usage. Additional emphasis is also given to researches on aerosol size and concentration resulting in pollution of manufacturing environment.