24 Hours in the Ocean

NIOSH received a request from an employer representative for an HHE at a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Colorado. The request concerned unknown gases that were pressurizing and heating a covered 55-gallon metal storage drum ("drum") containing used filters from a silicon wafer grinding filtration process. The requestor was concerned that disposing of these used filters in covered drums may present a safety and health hazard to maintenance employees working in the filtration process area. No health effects among maintenance employees were listed in the request.