New Analytical Screening Method to Measure Chrysotile in Asbestos Containing Materials by Inductively Optical Emission and Mass Spectrometry Techniques Coupled Plasma - Abstract
Although the World Health Organization has classified asbestos as a human carcinogen and many countries all around the world have banned or posed very strict restrictions to asbestos uses, its consumption is increasing worldwide as well as the incidence of asbestos-linked diseases. Current standard methods for asbestos analysis are very lengthy and costly and they suffer of poor detection limits, accuracy and precision, especially in the case of materials with low asbestos content. Here we describe a new, fast, efficient and selective analytical screening method to perform a test for Chrysotile in suspected Asbestos Containing Materials (ACMs) grouped by commodity class and analyzed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission and Mass Spectrometry Techniques (ICP-OES/MS). The outcomes were processed by means of the chemo metric approach of Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Here we demonstrate that this method permits to correctly classify the ACMs of specific commodity classes with the same performance than standard methods based on phasecontrast and electronic microscopy (PCM, FESEM) and Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Furthermore, this analytical approach offers a paramount advantage of an instrumental analytical technique with very high sensitivity and specificity, typical of trace element analysis techniques and suitable to automation process, definitely useful when extensive sampling plans are needed.