Estimating in vitro glass fiber dissolution rate from composition.

A method is presented for calculating the dissolution rate constant of a borosilicate glass fiber in the lung, as measured in vitro, from the oxide composition in weight percent. It is based upon expressing the logarithm of the dissolution rate as a linear function of the composition. It was found that the calculated dissolution rate constant agreed with the measured value within the variation of the measured data in a set of compositions in which the dissolution rate constant ranged over a factor of 100. The method was shown to provide a reasonable estimate of dissolution over a considerably wider range of composition than what was used to determine the parameters, such as a set of data in which the dissolution rate constant varied over a factor of 100,000. The dissolution rate constant may be used to estimate whether disease would ensue following animal inhalation or intraperitoneal studies.