We devised a new pretreatment to analyze asbestos in gypsum boards that are discarded when building new structures and demolishing old ones. In this pretreatment, crushed gypsum board powder is dissolved in a water solution of ammonium formate. Then, insoluble asbestos can be separated on filter paper for XRD analysis. This pretreatment is simpler than the determination of asbestos in building material products (JIS A 1481), and XRD analysis can confirm chrysotile of 0.1wt% or greater in gypsum. This method can only be applied for the analysis of gypsum, but it can be used effectively for confirming asbestos in amounts of 0.1wt% or greater in the gypsum for the purpose of avoiding asbestos in it.

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