Tubular crystals of chrysotile asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Tubular crystals of chrysotile asbestos, by T.F. Bates, L.B. Sand, J.F. Mink (Science, 1950).

The study

• Authors: T.F. Bates, L.B. Sand, J.F. Mink
• Journal: Science
• Published: 1950;111(2889):512-3
• Cited by: 22 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

The authors used electron microscopy to examine the crystal form of chrysotile asbestos and to compare it with the clay mineral endellite, which the senior author and colleagues had described in 1949 as forming tubular crystals. Electron micrographs were taken at The Pennsylvania State College and at the National Bureau of Standards. The illustrated samples were halloysite (dehydrated endellite) from Real County, Texas, and chrysotile synthesized by Bowen and Tuttle. The micrographs of synthetic chrysotile showed multiple tubes made of concentric cylinders, with a uniform diameter within each cylinder and a similar increase in diameter from one cylinder to the next. They also showed conical development of the tubes and longitudinal splitting. Well-defined discontinuities in the concentric layers, not seen in halloysite, were of unknown significance. The authors explained tubular growth by a slight misfit in dimensions between the two sheets of a 1:1 layered structure. This misfit produces curvature when the bonds between layers are too weak to stretch the lattice. In chrysotile, such a discrepancy exists between the magnesium-hydroxyl (brucite) sheet and the silicon-oxygen sheet. The authors concluded that both natural and synthetic chrysotile crystallize as hollow cylindrical tubes, and that there is a general structural analogy and a striking resemblance between the tubular crystals of endellite and chrysotile.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This short 1950 technical paper is a mineralogy study, not a health study. It did not look at people, animals, exposure or disease. The authors examined electron microscope pictures, taken at The Pennsylvania State College and the National Bureau of Standards, of chrysotile asbestos made in the laboratory by Bowen and Tuttle. They compared these with pictures of halloysite (dehydrated endellite), a clay mineral from Leaky, Real County, Texas. They reported features indicating that both natural and synthetic chrysotile form hollow cylindrical tubes resembling those of endellite. The synthetic chrysotile showed multiple tubes, with cylinders nested one inside another. Some tubes showed cone shapes and splitting along their length. Breaks in the tube layers had not been seen in halloysite, and the authors said their meaning was not yet understood. The authors explained the tube shape of endellite by a slight size mismatch between crystal layers that makes them curve. They noted a similar mismatch in chrysotile and concluded that a general structural likeness exists between serpentine minerals and kaolinite-group minerals.

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: Electron microscopy study of mineral crystals (a short technical paper in mineralogy). No human or animal subjects.
• Who was studied: No people or animals. The material examined was chrysotile synthesized by Bowen and Tuttle, pictured at the National Bureau of Standards and The Pennsylvania State College. It was compared with halloysite (dehydrated endellite) from Leaky, Real County, Texas.
• Exposure: Not applicable. No exposure was studied. The subject was the crystal form of chrysotile asbestos itself.
• Main results:
  • The micrographs showed features which, according to the authors, indicate that both natural and synthetic chrysotile crystallizes as hollow cylindrical tubes.
  • The chrysotile tubes bore a striking resemblance to tubular crystals of the clay mineral endellite described in 1949.
  • The synthetic chrysotile contained multiple tubes, that is, concentric cylinders of increasing diameter. Each cylinder had a uniform diameter, and the increase in diameter from one cylinder to the next was similar, which the authors took as evidence of structural control.
  • Some synthetic chrysotile tubes showed a conical development, as well as splitting along their length similar to that seen in halloysite.
  • Well-defined discontinuities in the concentric layers of the synthetic chrysotile had not been seen in pictures of halloysite.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that a general structural analogy exists between the serpentines (antigorite and chrysotile) and minerals of the kaolinite group. They tied this to a mismatch in dimensions between the brucite sheet and the silicon-oxygen sheet in chrysotile, like the mismatch they proposed explains the curved, tubular crystals of endellite.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors stated that the significance of the discontinuities seen in the concentric layers of the synthetic chrysotile tubes was not yet understood.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Chrysotile.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Chrysotile, Brucite.

Related studies

• Tubular-shaped stoichiometric chrysotile nanocrystals — G. Falini, E. Foresti, et al. (2004)
• Mesothelin levels in urine are affected by glomerular leakage and tubular reabsorption — K. Hollevoet, M.M. Speeckaert, et al. (2012)
• Occupational exposure to chrysotile asbestos and cancer risk: a review of the amphibole hypothesis — L.T. Stayner, D.A. Dankovic, et al. (1996)
• Nonoccupational exposure to chrysotile asbestos and the risk of lung cancer — M. Camus, J. Siemiatycki, et al. (1998)
• Follow-up study of chrysotile asbestos textile workers: cohort mortality and case-control analyses — J.M. Dement, D.P. Brown, et al. (1994)
• Health risk of chrysotile revisited — D. Bernstein, J. Dunnigan, et al. (2013)

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