Infrared determination of quartz, kaolin, corundum, silicon carbide and orthoclase in respirable dust from grinding wheels

Abstract

A method is proposed for the solid-state, quantitative, infrared determination of the common components found in respirable dust from grinding wheels. The entire spectral region, 1300–300 cm^–1, is used and the masses of components are computed by the least-squares method. The practical detection limit is 20 µg and the working range extends up to 600 µg, which is sufficient for this type of sample. Known synthetic mixtures yielded mean recoveries of 92–108%, depending on the component under consideration, the relative standard deviations being of the order of 5–18%.