Asbestos is nasty, DO use a suitable particle mask, preferably a gas mask with additional particulate filters like an ABEK-1 cartridge with added particle filter (these look like round disk shaped pads and go over the top of the filter canisters and under the screw on part that holds the canisters in) If you need I could, for just the price of the mask and filters plus shipping send you a suitable one. I need to go to my place for masks, gas tanks and the like anyway to get a new mask that fits better than the two I have now. I want a full-face mask not just a strap-on one, something compatible for a full-body hazmat suit, the kind of thing that looks like a space-suit you see in movies featuring deadly plagues, or military special ops teams in chemical warfare zones, something that operates in not simply a filtering but a tank-fed positive pressure or demand valve positive pressure NBC suit. Not because I want anything to do with chemical weapons or deadly viruses. Interesting enough reading certainly but I don't either have a USE for lethal plagues and poxes, or chemical weapons. Its just for proper protection when working with certain chemicals that you quite simply, do not get either a warning, or a second chance from. You fuck up, your dead sort of thing. Partly after a scare with something accidentally formed once in the past that could well have killed me in minutes effectively (although I'd not have known I was dead meat until many hours later, after my lungs started bleeding out plasma and I'd have drowned in my own blood.) Thankfully I was wearing a half face mask and I recognized the smell from my reading and mental databanks, although faint and with little warning properties itself, I knew what it actually MEANT, and knew to flee for my life, and ventilate the entire premises after coming back wearing every bit of protective gear that I could muster, and even behind the high-spec mask, holding my breath, coming in long enough to open a window or two, stick a fan on and then retreat again until I could get away and take another breath or two from a region far, far away. Had I not known what that faint, faint smell meant, it would easily have been ignorable since it was not in any way irritating or caustic etc. Subtle, and absolutely lethal is what it was, although I am not about to name it, for my own security's sake. Certainly not something I would ever, ever work with, or make deliberately. But that could have done for me within a few breaths unprotected at just some few parts per million in air. Or one close up whiff and I'd have been for it, and nothing that could be done about it either. Thankfully my emergency decontamination procedures are instinctive by now, and whilst I have needed them only maybe twice or three times in my life, four if you count non-fatal but crippling permanently, thanks to the filth tampering with my perfectly lawfully owned and used property illegally and maliciously. I both read up on whatever could possibly go wrong in anything I do first, prepare accordingly, and its...well...practice with things that merely are unpleasant to the senses such as foul stinkers of high potency make for good practice, or something that will just burn you. Now its ingrained and almost reflexive. Saved my sight after the filth fucked with something they should not have been there to fuck with in the first place, much less actually fucked with. If my chemical 'oh shit here we go..' autopilot mode had not been exactly that-instananeous and automatic, the pain would have incapacitated me in seconds and at worst I had about ten seconds to do something about it and keep my eyes.
What sort of particle mask was it raxy? I can easily dig up the specs I should think and see how it should fare against asbestos. Even if not specifically rated for something, many masks can deal with many things not specifically listed. For example, my ABEK-1 combined organic vapors/mists/fumes, acid gases and alkaline gases twin-canister half face mask is rated against chlorine gas, bromine vapors etc. but it says nothing about iodine monochloride, which is moisture sensitive, releasing strong acid, halogens and other things you don't want to breathe in, its air sensitive I THINK, not totally sure about sensitivity to oxygen, but it fumes like a jilted lover in air due to the moisture content, letting off vapors that will turn stainless steel keck clips to this: in maybe an hour, from the concentration of vapors on a teflon-taped, tight-fitted ground glass joint. After about 20min to a half hour it had bronzed in color, still looked shiny and actually got quite a nice patina, unusual for stainless steel, which I might actually try using for more artful purposes. But after a little longer that is the result:
The mask cartridges in question are rated for halogens other than fluorine (which would just ignite the mask on contact probably. It'll set fire to bricks, concrete and rocks in dilute streams of fluorine gas mixed in an inert carrier gas, never mind rubber and plastics! but the halogens are composed of two halogen atoms, of the same kind, E.g two chlorine atoms to form one molecule of Cl2 gas, or bromine, iodine Br+Br=Br2, I+I=I2 and so on so forth. Iodine monochloride is in some ways similar, its formed of iodine and chlorine, rather than simply both atoms being the same kind of halogen. The bonds between the atoms are weaker, and it is more reactive than either, and has some properties leaving it sort of in the middle between the two with respect to some of its properties. It is, for example, a dark, fuming liquid that is somewhat reminiscent of bromine, its a powerful oxidizing agent, its highly toxic and it forms an unusual polyatomic hydrohalic acid when hydrolyzed by water, and like the halogens will insert into an alkene C=C double bond, to give an unusual mixed chloroiodide that I can forsee will turn out rather useful in chemistry pursuits of mine. Like bromine, the element composed of two atoms of same species, which itself fits in between chlorine gas and iodine (a solid which easily vaporises and sublimes), and is a dense, toxic fuming liquid, although fluorine aside, afaik the elemental halogens do not easily just hydrolyze, ICl does on the other hand, its stable when kept dry, and ideally topped off with some dry argon, in a bottle composed of something that will resist being attacked by it, with a perfluorocarbon based plastic top, a sealing disk in the cap of the bottle and plenty teflon tape wrapped round the threads of the bottle neck. Which is how I keep the iodine monochloride that I made and distilled successfully. Sealed up like that, securely, and kept in the fridge (the chemical fridge I mean, dedicated to the holding of things you really don't want to end up in your supper and that are volatile)
Its stable, when stored like that, but if exposed to air, the water vapor traces cause it to fume profusely giving off vapors that I'd really not want to even think about inhaling. And if dropped into water, a single drop reacted quite violently, and decomposed more or less instantly on the spot without having time to sink. Dripped onto a little bit of (red) phosphorus powder (outside, masked up, gloved up, booted up, full face visor over goggles and the gas mask, leather trench wrapped round the lot) it instantly burst into a searing white flame and some nasty ass fumes. Some fine metal powders too were ignited. Haven't tested it in organic solvents yet, but when I've the time, things like acetone, naphtha, paper, plastics, oils and various organic solvents will be tested, again outside and on a very small scale using drops or two of ICl and 0.5ml-1ml per solvent, or 100mg quantities of solids, excluding wood, paper etc. which will just have a squirt applied to a sheet of paper, a dry piece of wood etc.)
And after a (physically caused, thanks to a running nose making the seal valve stick and come loose) accident that resulted in me getting a TINY breath, I had to be prescribed an asthma reliever inhaler to breathe properly for the next 3-4 days or so. So I know that it does not take much at all to cause serious harm. When working with it I replace my mask cartridges probably far more zealously than need be, hourly or with higher concentrations, half hourly. Because you don't get much of a warning before it will do some serious damage. It can be smelled at much lower concentrations than are harmful, its not one of those sneaky little ninja-toxins like say carbon monoxide that creep up and stab you in the back before you ever know its there or off you so fast you haven't a chance, and its irritant, like Cl2, Br2 etc. at a far lower concentration than it takes to do damage, but a mask failure and sudden deep breath etc (I didn't get anything of the kind, I realized and I ran for it, holding my breath after breathing out the moment I sensed its odor to get out and fix the mask) and it'd do some damage alright. So from the very fact my own mask (one of the two I have) simply will permit me to work with, or synthesize, distill etc. ICl without either suffering irritant effects or worse, that itself tells me that the mask, although not rated for ICl or ICl3 (both were present, plus chlorine gas) will protect me when used properly. Doesn't make the stuff any less dangerous if it were to be treated with disrespect or stupidity, but the absence of a rating for a specific chemical does not AUTOMATICALLY render it useless against it.
And there are factors that affect breathing gear requirement such as concentration of fumes, dusts, vapors, gases etc. such, the duration which the mask user is to be exposed, or if its simply an emergency escape air tank to provide sufficient breathing time, to either act to remedy the situation, run the fuck away or both in case of working with something at a given concentration and then an accident resulting in an increase, such as a spill, a gas tank of something being punctured, left open accidentally, blown up in a fire, something being spilled, dropped and a container breaking etc.
So the trick is to plan ahead, and plan also for exigencies that would result in exceeding the specs of whatever equipment is used/needed. Those 'air recirculation system, meet faecal matter' moments that are not planned TO happen, but owing to the hands of Mssrs. Murphy and Sod sticking undesired fingers in your particular kind of pie ought to be anticipated and planned FOR if they DO happen regardless of intentions to the opposite effect.
