Characteristics of Beryllium Oxide and Beryllium Metal Powders for Use as Reference Materials

Abstract

Abstract Laboratory evaluations of commercially available powders of beryllium oxide (BeO) and beryllium metal, with special emphasis on type UOX-125 BeO and type I-400 beryllium metal, are ongoing to develop reference materials for evaluating analytical chemistry digestion methods and facilitating occupational health studies. Measured properties of the powders include morphology, size, density, specific surface area (SSA); crystalline and elemental composition, surface chemistry, and in vitro dissolution in hydrochloric acid (HCl) (pH 1), phagolysosomal simulant fluid (PSF) (pH 4.5), and serum ultrafiltrate (pH 7.3). The powders were also used to evaluate the digestion and recovery efficiencies for commonly used U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard analytical methods. UOX-125 BeO powder has high-purity and aggregate cluster morphology with SSA independent of aerodynamic particle cluster size, which results in dissolution kinetics that are independent of cluster size. I-400 beryllium metal powder has high-purity and compact particle morphology with SSA that increases as particle size decreases, which causes size-dependent dissolution kinetics (i.e., smaller particles dissolve more quickly than larger particles). The PSF and HCl chemical dissolution rate constants (g·cm−2·day−1) for the BeO powder were a factor of 10 lower than for the metal powder. Concomitantly, the EPA and NIOSH analytical methods, which used aggressive digestion procedures (e.g., microwave-assisted sample digestion or perchloric acid), gave more complete recovery of beryllium from BeO compared to the OSHA analytical method. Our characterization data suggest that these BeO and metal powders hold promise for use as analytical reference materials. We recommend continued laboratory collaborations to evaluate and apply these BeO and beryllium metal powders as analytical reference materials.