Asbestos Fibers

This article, from the Johns-Manville research center, described the minerals sold as asbestos. It was not a health study and reported no information on workers or disease. The author described where asbestos occurs, how it formed, the chemistry of six fiber types, and how the fibers behave. Chrysotile, described as the most commonly used fiber, was attacked by acids that could dissolve its magnesium and leave silica behind. The amphibole fibers (anthophyllite, amosite, tremolite and crocidolite) were described as more acid resistant. Chrysotile was reported as alkaline. Its positive surface charge in a water suspension became negative at pH 11.64. Electron microscope work showed chrysotile fibers to be tubular. Chrysotile's surface area was approximately 20 square meters per gram. Fines extracted from asbestos had 28 square meters per gram. The article called these fines dust and described them as mostly serpentine rock or a form of antigorite. Crocidolite's surface area was 9.2 square meters per gram, and amosite's was printed as '2,4'. Chrysotile's tensile strength was reported as 80,000 to 100,000 lb per square inch. The supplied transcription is garbled and appears incomplete.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

From J-M's medical library

This copy comes from the Johns-Manville medical library. It was among the papers J-M kept in its medical library without an index entry.