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Published on: May 13, 2020
Chrysotile asbestos migration in air from contaminated water: An experimental simulation
Chiara Avataneo1, Jasmine R Petriglieri2, Silvana Capella1
1Department of Earth Sciences, University of Turin, Via Valperga Caluso 35, I-10125 Turin, Italy; "G. Scansetti" Interdepartmental Center for Studies on Asbestos and Other Toxic Particulates, University of Turin, Via Pietro Giuria 7, I-10125 Turin, Italy.
Abstract:
In Naturally Occurring Asbestos (NOA) rich areas, water flows through asbestos bearing rocks and soils and generates waterborne fibres that may migrate in air and become a risk for humans. Research on the migration and dispersion after water vaporisation has been so far only marginally evaluated. This study investigates the migration in air of asbestos from a set of suspensions contaminated by chrysotile from Balangero (Italy), under controlled laboratory conditions. We evaluated i) the morphological modifications that might occur to chrysotile during migration from water to air, and ii) the amount of airborne chrysotile mobilised from standardised suspensions. Morphological alteration of asbestos fibres occurred during water-air migration and impacted on the analytical response of electron microscopy. Waterborne asbestos concentration higher than 40 ∙ 106 f/L generates in air concentration higher than 1 fibre per litre [f/L], the alarm threshold limit set by World Health Organization for airborne asbestos. A possible correlation between the waterborne fibre concentration as mass or number of fibres per volume unit [μg/L or f/L] was observed.
