Preparation and evaluation of a chrysotile asbestos-containing standard material for validating x-ray diffractometric quantitation.

A standard material containing chrysotile asbestos for the validation of x-ray diffractometric quantitation was developed using an asbestos-containing building material i.e., perlite board. The board as the base material was crushed, pulverized, and homogenized. The homogeneity of the powder of perlite board was estimated by analysis of variance. The diffraction intensity values of the crystalline phases and the concentrations of elements determined by x-ray diffractometry and x-ray fluorescence analysis were used for analysis of variance. There is no significant difference between the within-bottle variance and the between-bottle variance, indicating that the powdered perlite board was sufficiently homogenous. The concentration of chrysotile in the material was determined using two methods: an internal standard/x-ray diffractometry method and the x-ray diffractometry/Rietveld refinement. The concentration of chrysotile in the material was determined by an internal standard/x-ray diffractometry method and the material had a chrysotile concentration of 24.1 ± 0.2 mass%.