Novel metal-micelle asbestos and treatment of asbestos and other silicate minerals to reduce their harmful properties

Abstract

Silicate minerals, including asbestos fibres, are rendered less harmful by forming metal-micelle polymer coatings on the silicate. A metal-micelle polymer coating is formed on a silicate by contacting a silicate mineral, such as asbestos, with a metal-weak base-strong acid aqueous ion system, or a metal-strong base-weak acid ion system. In these systems the metal is selected from the group consisting of manganese, chromium, cobalt, iron, copper, aluminum and mixtures of these metals. The product of reacting asbestos fibres with these systems is less irritating to living cells than asbestos fibres and also has substantially the same physical and chemical properties as asbestos fibres and can thus be substituted for asbestos fibres in most technological applications.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.