Mobility of crocidolite asbestos in sandy porous media mimicking aquifer systems

Asbestos is widely recognized as being a carcinogen when dispersed in air, but very little is known about its exposure pathways in water and its subsequent effects on human health. Several studies have proved asbestos presence in groundwater but failed to assess its mobility in aquifer systems. This paper aims to fill this gap by studying the transport of crocidolite, an amphibole asbestos, through sandy porous media mimicking different aquifer systems. To this purpose, two sets of column test were performed varying the crocidolite suspension concentration, the quartz sand grain size distribution, and the physicochemical water parameters (i.e., pH). The results proved that crocidolite is mobile in quartz sand due to the repulsive interactions between fibres and porous media. The concentration of fibres at the outlet of the column were found to decrease when decreasing the grain size distribution of the porous medium, with a bigger impact on highly concentrated suspensions. In particular, 5-to-10-µm-long fibres were able to flow through all the tested sands while fibres longer than 10 µm were mobile only through the coarser medium. These results confirm that groundwater migration should be considered a potential exposure pathway while implementing human health risk assessment. [Display omitted] •5-to-10-µm-long crocidolite is transported through sandy porous media.•Crocidolite longer than 10 µm is mobile in coarse sand aquifers.•A geochemical modification of groundwater can mobilise crocidolite.•Groundwater is a potential migration/exposure pathway for asbestos.