X-ray diffraction spectrometric analysis of nickel refinery aerosols, process materials and particulates isolated from worker lung tissues.

Results are reported of X-ray diffraction analysis of extracts derived from lungs of two nickel refinery workers and of three stationary air samples collected inside a nickel refinery. Since environmental samples from the 1950s and 1960s do not exist, two archived production control samples from that period were also analyzed. Because nickel has been found in respiratory tissue of workers retired for more than twenty years, it was likely that the residual nickel compounds must be rather insoluble.