ISO 10312 discusses ambient air with a focus on asbestos presence. ISO 10312 specifies a reference method using transmission electron microscopy for the determination of airborne asbestos fibres and structures in a wide range of ambient air situations, including the interior atmospheres of buildings, and for a detailed evaluation for asbestos structures in any atmosphere.
ISO 10312 provides a method that allows the determination of the types of asbestos fibres present and also includes measurement of the lengths, widths, and aspect ratios of the asbestos structures.
Note: The method cannot discriminate between individual fibres of asbestos and elongate fragments (cleavage fragments and acicular particles) from non-asbestos analogues of the same amphibole mineral.
ISO 10312 on TEM for asbestos is useful for:
Most fibres in ambient atmospheres are not asbestos and therefore, there is a requirement for fibres to be identified. Many airborne asbestos fibres in ambient atmospheres have diameters below the resolution limit of the optical microscope.
ISO 10312 is applicable to the determination of airborne asbestos in a wide range of ambient air situations, including the interior atmospheres of buildings, and for a detailed evaluation of any atmosphere. ISO 10312 is based on transmission electron microscopy, which has adequate resolution to allow detection of small fibres and is currently the only technique capable of unequivocal identification of the majority of individual fibres of asbestos.
ISO 10312 describes the method of analysis for a single air filter. However, one of the largest potential errors in characterizing asbestos in ambient atmospheres is associated with the variability between filter samples. For this reason, it is necessary to design a replicate sampling scheme.
BS ISO 10312:2019 supersedes ISO 10312:1995, which is withdrawn. BS ISO 10312:2019 includes some technical changes with respect to ISO 10312:1995.
These include:
ISO 10312