Analisi speditiva di fibre di amianto in suoli contaminati attraverso l'accoppiamento tra analisi di immagine e spettroscopia Micro-Raman

The material for rail ballast is normally obtained from the crushing of rocks with high mechanical strength, such as basalt, trachyte, gneiss and "green rocks", as ophiolites (serpentinites, amphibolites, gabbros, prasinites etc.). Green rocks often contain discrete quantities of heavy metals and minerals as chrysotile and amphiboles asbestos. In Italy the chrysotile asbestos mine in Balangero (Turin) has produced over 5 M tons of railroad ballast, which was used for the railways of Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy and, in part, Tuscany and Emilia Romagna from 30s up to 1990. In addition to Balangero, several other quarries provided the railways from the 40s to 2000. In 2005 it started a very complex and ambitious monitoring project alongside the Italian Railway Network in order to pinpoint the problem and find the most appropriate methods to solve it.