Infra Red Spectroscopy of the Regulated Asbestos Amphiboles

Abstract

Vibrational spectroscopies (Fourier Transform Infra Red, FTIR, and Raman) are exceptionally valuable tools for the identification and crystal–chemical study of fibrous minerals, and asbestos amphiboles in particular. Raman spectroscopy has been widely applied in toxicological studies and thus a large corpus of reference data on regulated species is found in the literature. However, FTIR spectroscopy has been mostly used in crystal–chemical studies and very few data are found on asbestos amphiboles. This paper is intended to fill this gap. We report new FTIR data collected on a suite of well-characterized samples of the five regulated amphibole species: anthophyllite, amosite, and crocidolite, provided by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) Organization, and tremolite and actinolite, from two well-known occurrences. The data from these reference samples have been augmented by results from additional specimens to clarify some aspects of their spectroscopic features. We show that the FTIR spectra in both the OH-stretching region and in the lattice modes region can be effective for rapid identification of the asbestos type.

Mineral Fibres and Asbestos Bodies in Human Lung Tissue: A Case Study

“…Non-coated amosite and crocidolite show Fe/Si ratios of 1.53 and 2.18, respectively. The reference asbestos amphiboles UICC amosite and UICC crocidolite, on the other hand, have Fe/Si ratios of 0.8 and 0.7, respectively [38]. Figure 5 displays a HRTEM image and the corresponding FFT electron diffraction patterns of a non-coated crocidolite fibre recovered from the lung tissue.…”

Multi-scale characterization of glaucophane from Chiavolino (Biella, Italy): implications for international regulations on elongate mineral particles

“…4) shows, in addition to the quadruplet of peaks observed in the powder pattern (displayed as the inset in Fig. 4), two broad absorptions at 4327 and 4194 cm −1 , which result from the combination of the stretching and libration vibrations of the O-H dipole (Della Ventura et al, 2021a).…”

Asbestos-Based Pottery from Corsica: The First Fiber-Reinforced Ceramic Matrix Composite

“…Figures 3 and 4 show representative FTIR ATR spectra collected on powdered fragments of the shards. Spectrum d f has been recorded on a fiber bundle extracted from sample d. The bands, for instance, the Si-O stretching and bending modes at~960 (1015 and 1080) and 620 cm −1 (Figure 3), are characteristic of asbestos and similar compounds (amphiboles and pyroxenes) [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. From this first analysis, it can be seen that the samples b and d on the one hand and the samples a and c on the other hand are rather similar, but sample d appears to be more heterogeneous.…”

“…The large number of phases identified by XRPD and the variety of Raman spectra observed are consistent with a firing taking place at low temperature, with a resultant degradation of the pristine mineral occurring without the clear formation of neophases. Trittschack et al [18][19][20] observed the intensity decrease of the O-H stretching mode at~3600-3700 cm −1 over 450 • C (de-hydroxylation) and then the formation of forsterite at a temperature over~500 • C, with the characteristic doublet seen at~820-850 cm −1 .…”