A new digestion method for recovery of MMMFs from lungs

A new tissue digestion method is proposed to recover man-made mineral fibers (MMMFs) from lungs, which is an improved Kjeldahl method using microwaves. Tissue digestion is carried out under five different conditions in this experiment, and the most suitable condition is found as follows; dried rat lung (0.5 g of wet weight) is put into a flask with 0.1 ml of H2SO4 and 2.0 ml of HNO3, and treated by microwaves for 5 min. After the treatment, 1.0 ml of H2O2 is added immediately and the sample is treated again under the same condition. Pure samples of glass fibers and refractory ceramic fibers are treated by this proposed method. Numbers and sizes of the fibers are measured before and after the treatment on enlarged photos taking by a scanning electron microscope. As no significant changes are observed in fiber dimensions and numbers, the proposed method is shown to be applicable to recover these MMMFs from lungs.