Compositions: ceramic – Ceramic compositions – Glass compositions – compositions containing glass other than...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-04
2001-01-30
Group, Karl (Department: 1755)
Compositions: ceramic
Ceramic compositions
Glass compositions, compositions containing glass other than...
C501S038000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06180546
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates to saline soluble, non-metallic, amorphous, inorganic oxide, refractory fibrous materials.
Inorganic fibrous materials are well known and widely used for many purposes (e.g. as thermal or acoustic insulation in bulk, mat, or blanket form, as vacuum-formed shapes, as vacuum formed boards and papers, and as ropes, yarns or textiles; as a reinforcing fibre for building materials; as a constituent of brake blocks for vehicles). In most of these applications the properties for which inorganic fibrous materials are used require resistance to heat, and often resistance to aggressive chemical environments.
Inorganic fibrous materials can be either glassy or crystalline. Asbestos is an inorganic fibrous material one form of which has been strongly implicated in respiratory disease.
It is still not clear what the causative mechanism is that relates some asbestos with disease but some researchers believe that the mechanism is mechanical and size related. Asbestos of a critical size can pierce cells in the body and so, through long and repeated cell injury, have a bad effect on health.
Whether this mechanism is true or not regulatory agencies have indicated a desire to categorise any inorganic fibre product that has a respiratory fraction as ‘hazardous’, regardless of whether there is any evidence to support such categorisation. Unfortunately for many of the applications for which inorganic fibres are used, there are no realistic substitutes.
Accordingly there is a demand for inorganic fibres that will pose as little risk as possible (if any) and for which there are objective grounds to believe them safe.
A line of study has proposed that if inorganic fibres were made that were sufficiently soluble in physiological fluids that their residence time in the human body was short; then damage would not occur or at least be minimised. As the risk of asbestos-linked disease appears to depend very much on the length of exposure this idea appears reasonable. Asbestos is extremely insoluble.
As intercellular fluid is saline in nature the importance of fibre solubility in saline solution has long been recognised. If fibres are soluble in physiological saline solution then, provided the dissolved components are not toxic, the fibres should be safer than fibres which are not so soluble. The shorter the time a fibre is resident in the body the less damage it can do. H. Förster in ‘The behaviour of mineral fibres in physiological solutions’ (
Proceedings of
1982
WHO IARC Conference
, Copenhagen, Volume 2, pages 27-55(1988)) discussed the behaviour of commercially produced mineral fibres in physiological saline solutions. Fibres of widely varying solubility were discussed.
International Patent Application No. WO087/05007 disclosed that fibres comprising magnesia, silica, calcia and less than 10 wt % alumina are soluble in saline solution. The solubilities of the fibres disclosed were in terms of parts per million of silicon (extracted from the silica-containing material of the fibre) present in a saline solution after 5 hours of exposure. The highest value revealed in the examples had a silicon level of 67 ppm. In contrast, and adjusted to the same regime of measurement, the highest level disclosed in the Förster paper was equivalent to approximately 1 ppm. Conversely if the highest value revealed in the International Patent Application was converted to the same measurement regime as the Förster paper it would have an extraction rate of 901,500 mg Si/kg fibre—i.e. some 69 times higher than any of the fibres Förster tested, and the fibres that had the highest extraction rate in the Förster test were glass fibres which had high alkali contents and so would have a low melting point. This is convincingly better performance even taking into account factors such as differences in test solutions and duration of experiment.
International Patent Application No. WO089/12032 disclosed additional fibres soluble in saline solution and discusses some of the constituents that may be present in such fibres.
European Patent Application No. 0399320 disclosed glass fibres having a high physiological solubility.
Further patent specifications disclosing selection of fibres for their saline solubility are European 0412878 and 0459897, French 2662687 and 2662688, PCT WO086/04807 and WO090/02713.
The refractoriness of the fibres disclosed in these various prior art documents varies considerable. The maximum service temperature of any of these disclosed fibres (when used as refractory insulation) is up to 815° C. (1500° F.).
Service temperature for refractory insulation is definable in many ways but to be consistent with the above mentioned International Patent Applications this application shall mean by service temperature that temperature at which the fibre shows acceptable shrinkage (maximum of 5% linear shrinkage after exposure to temperature for 24 hours) and at which the fibre has not appreciably suffered through excessive sintering or softening.
There is a demand for physiologically soluble fibres having a service temperature of greater than 815° C., particularly for such fibres having a service temperature above 900° C.
Testing for physiological solubility and safety can be done by inhalation studies on, e.g. rats. However such studies are extremely time consuming and costly. A study can take of the order of 2½ years from start and can easily cost £1 million per study. A cheaper alternative is to test for solubility in physiological or like fluids in vitro.
Testing of an inorganic fibre for solubility in physiological solutions is not so time consuming, but there is currently no way of predicting which systems will produce such soluble fibres. Therefore anyone seeking to find such soluble fibres has to work on a trial and error basis assisted by what is commonly known as ‘chemical intuition’ but is equally commonly known as ‘a hunch’. Such trial and error testing is laborious and time consuming. Further, once a fibre is found that is soluble there is no guarantee that it will be usable at useful service temperatures.
Accordingly there is a demand for a method of predicting whether a fibre will have a reasonable solubility in physiological solutions, and further there is a demand that such a test should preferably give an indication as to expected service temperature.
Shrinkage of inorganic refractory fibres occurs through two mechanisms; the first is viscous flow of the fibre material. Most inorganic refractory fibres are glasses and so may be defined as liquids having an exceedingly high viscosity (but still liable to flow). By their nature fibres are elongate and so have a high surface area per unit volume. As the reduction of surface area is a means of reducing the surface energy of a material, when the glass becomes fluid enough it will flow so as to reduce surface area. This flow results in a coarsening and shortening of the fibres and so to shrinkage, and in the extreme results in disruption of the fibres into separate particles.
The second mechanism leading to shrinkage is that at elevated temperatures glasses may crystallise to form one or more crystal phases. Usually these crystal phases have a smaller molar volume than the glasses from which they crystallise and so shrinkage results. Some fibres are known for which the molar volume of the crystalline form exceeds that of the glass (for example Al
2
O
3
/SiO
2
glassy fibres may crystallise to form mullite crystals). In these cases the expansion due to crystallisation may oppose the shrinkage caused by viscous flow.
If shrinkage through viscous flow occurs at a much lower temperature than crystallisation then the crystallisation may not be able to compensate for such shrinkage.
There is a demand for a fibre in which both viscous flow and crystallisation occur at as high and as similar a temperature as possible, and preferably in which the expansion due to crystallisation closely matches the shrinkage due to viscous flow so that the net effect is as close to zero shrinkage as possible.
When used as refractory insulation inor
Jubb Gary Anthony
Martin Jean-Louis
Gray Bruce D.
Group Karl
Kilpatrick & Stockton LLP
Russell Dean W.
The Morgan Crucible Company plc
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