The assessment of particulate matter emitted from stone-crushing industry by correlating rock textures with particles generated after comminution and dispersed in air environment

The generation and emission of particulate matter from abrasion industry are subjects of the pollution monitoring by multidisciplinary study involving earth sciences and engineering disciplines. This work investigates the correlation between textural properties of in situ rock with class size distribution and morphology of particles generated after rock comminution and particles emitted in the air. A special comminution-dust sampling architecture was realised. The combined use of scanning electron microscopy and particle size analyser was considered in performing digital image analysis on both crushed products and airborne particles collected onto membrane filters. The results show that the size and morphology of crushed particles are linked to the petrographic rock properties. In particular, particles with fibrous morphology are prominent in rocks showing foliated textures where elongated minerals occurred, with implication for asbestos-bearing rocks. For what concerns the airborne particles, the results show that their aerodynamic diameters are independent of the crusher operating conditions. External parameters probably intervene in the distribution of the airborne particles emission, including the dynamic air fluxes, or environmental conditions. By applying mathematical models, the morphology and size range of airborne particles following the comminution processes can be predicted, and results has implication for pollutants contamination due to particulate matters emitted by crush stone industry.