Asbestos Symposium of Articles by Badollet

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos Symposium of Articles by Badollet, by M.S. Badollet (1958).

The study

• Author: M.S. Badollet
• Published: Papers Presented at the Annual General Meeting of The Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy 1948-1958. Reprinted by the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association
• Type of article: Conference paper
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This item is a 1958 reprint, by the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, of technical papers by M. S. Badollet of the Johns-Manville Research Center, some written with co-authors, presented to the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, 1948 to 1958. The papers deal with the industrial properties and uses of asbestos fibers. They report no data on worker health or disease. Laboratory tests covered chrysotile, amosite, crocidolite, anthophyllite, tremolite and actinolite. Typical tensile strengths of chrysotile crudes were given as 40,000 to 100,000 pounds per square inch. Chrysotile was readily attacked by acids, while amphibole fibers were fairly acid-resistant. Among the commercial samples tested, anthophyllite seemed most resistant, though the author noted solubility would vary with fiber source. Heating reduced chrysotile strength, rapidly above 1,000 degrees F. Asbestic fines reduced how easily water drained from fiber in wet processes. The 1953 paper stated that chrysotile probably accounted for 90 per cent of asbestos used in industrial products. It also described crocidolite filter pads in gas masks, industrial masks and some cigarettes. In the 1958 X-ray diffraction study of mine samples, the authors concluded that no single method could identify all minerals in a sample.

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.

What the study did and found

• Design: Collection of technical papers (laboratory tests of fiber properties, industry descriptions and reviews) presented at Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy meetings, 1948 to 1958; not a health study
• Who was studied: Asbestos fiber and rock samples, not people: commercial fibers from Canada, the United States, Africa and other sources, Canadian asbestos floats, and serpentine and asbestos samples from Quebec mines and one from Deloro township, Ontario, supplied by Dr. H. C. Cooke
• Exposure: No human exposure was studied. Fiber types tested included chrysotile (Canadian, Arizona, Rhodesian, Russian, Australian, Cyprus and Italian), amosite, crocidolite (African Blue, Bolivian blue), anthophyllite, tremolite and actinolite
• Main results:
  • Typical tensile strengths of chrysotile asbestos crudes ranged from 40,000 to 100,000 pounds per square inch (1948 paper)
  • Asbestic fines or shorts reduced the filterability of a fiber mass in proportion to the amount present (1949 paper)
  • In acid tests, chrysotile was readily attacked by acids, while the amphibole fibers were fairly acid-resistant (1951 paper)
  • Among the commercial samples tested, anthophyllite seemed to resist acid best, followed by crocidolite, tremolite and amosite (1951 paper)
  • Heat lowered the tensile strength of chrysotile fibers, with strength falling rapidly above 1,000 degrees F (1951 paper)
  • Asbestos-cement panels made with Canadian 6D chrysotile fiber heated at 1,200 degrees F for 3 minutes retained 82.6 per cent of their normal strength (1955 paper)
  • Chrysotile was stated to probably account for 90 per cent of asbestos fibers used in industrial products (1953 paper)
  • Filter pads made of crocidolite, alone or combined with other fibers, were described as used in gas masks, industrial masks and some cigarettes (1953 paper)
• The authors' conclusion: In the 1958 X-ray diffraction paper, the authors concluded that no one method is adequate by itself to identify all the minerals in a sample, and that a combination of methods is needed
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The solubility samples were commercial fibers containing mineral impurities, so their solubility was not the same as that of hand-picked, high-grade crudes
  • The author noted that all the solubility results would vary with the source of the fiber and the form of the sample
  • Treating rock particles as perfect spheres to calculate specific surface area introduced some error; the method gives only a rough comparison

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, Johns-Manville, Chrysotile, Amosite, Crocidolite, Anthophyllite, Tremolite, Actinolite.

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