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A COMPARISON OF THE EFFICIENCY OF POLYCARBONATE AND MIXED CELLULOSE ESTER FILTERS FOR USE IN THE FILTRATION OF WATER SAMPLES
Citation:
Brackett, K. A. AND P J. Clark*. A COMPARISON OF THE EFFICIENCY OF POLYCARBONATE AND MIXED CELLULOSE ESTER FILTERS FOR USE IN THE FILTRATION OF WATER SAMPLES. ENVIRONMENTAL CHOICES - TECHNICAL SUPPLEMENT 1(2):25-28, (1993).
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Description:
The federal standard for the presence of asbestos in drinking water mandates the use of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) as the only acceptable testing method. The July 17, 1992 Federal Register (57 FR 31839, Section 141.23(k)(4)) specifies that the analysis for asbestos shall be conducted by the EPA Protocol entitled, “Analytical method for Determination of Asbestos Fibers in Water” (EPA/600/4-83), developed by Chatfield and Dillon, which uses polycarbonate (PC) membrane filters. A separate document (1993) providing guidance and clarification of the Chatfield method has been peer-reviewed, which allows some slight changes to what was originally a research method, but still requires the use of PC filters. A draft of an alternate method using mixed cellulose ester (MCE) membrane filters was recently published in Microscope. The primary reason for the specification of PC membranes was a concern over the loss of fibers ≤10 µm in length. This experiment was designed to determine the quantitative differences between the two methods for all fiber lengths as well as for the regulated fibers ≥10 µm in length.