A Filter’s a Filter Right? An Examination of Filters used by New York’s ELAP Asbestos Laboratory.

Myron Getman ‘94
Assistant Research Scientist, New York State ELAP Asbestos Laboratory

Microcellulose ester (MCE) filters are used by the commercial asbestos testing industry in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) air-sampling cassettes. This type of filter has long thought to be adequate for this purpose. However, anecdotal evidence exists within the analytical testing community that certain brands of TEM air cassette prep better than others. After encountering difficulties in preparing one brand of TEM air cassette, the New York State Environmental Laboratory Approval Program undertook this scanning electron microscopy (SEM) study to see if there was a morphological explanation for the prepping differences.