Crude fiber determination using ceramic fiber to replace asbestos

Crude fiber was determined in a wide range of feed products by a method which specifies ceramic fiber as a filter medium instead of the more hazardous and difficult to obtain asbestos. Results correlated well with those obtained by using AOAC official final action method 7.061-7.065 (correlation coefficient, 0.9994). For 8 samples, the coefficients of variation ranged from 0.74 to 4.80%. Compared with the AOAC method the proposed method showed a slight negative bias of 0.1%. Compared with asbestos, ceramic fiber was easier to prepare for use, filtering was faster, and samples bumped less.