Unfortunately, the referenced article in the first post of this thread, doesn't mention the relativity of this 'polution' caused by 3D printers: it's comparable to grilling meat on a charcoal barbeque or smoking a cigarette, as mentioned here and in other articles.
-Ath
I'm not sure... see below...
Wet/dry vacs have two filters, one filter that catches real fine particles like dust. The outer filter which fits over the dust filter is foam. I've used it on real fine saw-dust and nothing got by the filters, the exhaust was blowing clean air even though the foam filter was dry....
-Tinman57
The problem isn't so much the volume of dust. The problem is the size of it. Regular filters simply aren't equipped to deal with nano-particles. They're just too small.
A good example of the problem in action is when you see outbreaks of cryptosporidium in the water. It makes a lot of people sick and kills some elderly and kids. It's a very small pathogen that isn't filtered out of the water by things like Brita filters or granular carbon filters. You need an RO or high-quality compressed carbon block filter as their particulate filtering size is very small, and enough to get the pathogen. My guess is that the filters on a wet/dry vac are more like a Brita filter than an RO filter.
There are other kinds of filters that act fundamentally differently though - e.g. electrostatic and chemical/resin filters. I don't know enough about 3D printing media to know what kind of filter would help though.
From what I've read across a few different articles in different disciplines, nano-particles are very much different as they can interact on much smaller scales, which is what makes them so effective in many cases.
I have NO idea whether 3D printing material is safe or not or whether it's mostly safe or whatever.
I AM willing to bet that the small size of the particles is relevant to the discussion of whether they are safe or not. Beyond that, no clue.
My guess is that it's probably better to be safe than sorry, and to try to minimize the amount that you breathe in. Given how small they are, it's going to make filtering out all of it tough, but some basic precautions would still be a good idea.