Glossary

40 asbestos, lead, mold, PFAS and concrete terms in plain English. Every definition links to its source.

A

Abatement vs remediation: Abatement means measures that permanently eliminate or control a specific hazard, such as lead or asbestos, while remediation is the wider term for cleaning up contamination at a building or site.
Asbestos survey: Asbestos survey is a building inspection by a certified inspector who samples suspect materials for laboratory analysis before renovation or demolition, so you know what contains asbestos.
Asbestos-containing material (ACM): Asbestos-containing material, or ACM, is any material or product that contains more than 1 percent asbestos as shown by laboratory analysis, whether it is soft and crumbly or hard and solid.

B

Black mold: Black mold is the popular name for dark mold, often Stachybotrys chartarum, but color alone does not tell you how dangerous a mold is; moisture control and testing matter more.

C

Clearance air test: Clearance air test is air sampling after cleanup, taken after wet cleaning and fan disturbance, to check that a work area has no leftover fibers and is safe to re-enter.
Concrete grinding: Concrete grinding uses diamond tooling to level a slab, open its surface and remove coatings, adhesive or stains, and it is the first step before polishing or coating.
Containment: Containment is a sealed work area, usually plastic sheeting over barriers, that isolates a job so dust, fibers or spores cannot spread to the rest of the building.

D

Densifier: Densifier is a liquid chemical hardener that soaks into concrete and reacts inside it to make the surface denser, harder and less prone to dusting, which helps it take a polish.

E

Encapsulation: Encapsulation treats asbestos-containing material with a coating that embeds or surrounds the fibers to keep them in place, instead of removing the material from the building.
Epoxy floor coating: Epoxy floor coating is a resin system applied to a prepared concrete slab that cures into a hard, seamless surface, often used in shops, warehouses and garages.

F

Forever chemicals: Forever chemicals is the common nickname for PFAS, chosen because many of them break down very slowly and can build up in people, animals and the environment over time.
Friable asbestos: Friable asbestos is material with more than 1 percent asbestos that crumbles to powder under hand pressure when dry, which makes it easy to release fibers into the air.

G

Granular activated carbon (GAC): Granular activated carbon, or GAC, is a porous carbon filter media that adsorbs PFAS and other contaminants from water as it flows through a filter bed.
Grit: Grit is the coarseness number of a diamond abrasive used on concrete: low numbers cut and remove material, and high numbers refine and polish the surface to a shine.

H

Hazardous waste: Hazardous waste is waste with properties that make it dangerous or capable of harming human health or the environment, and it must be handled, shipped and disposed of under federal and state rules.
HEPA filter: HEPA filter, short for high efficiency particulate air, traps at least 99.97 percent of particles 0.3 microns wide, so crews use it in vacuums and air machines to capture fine dust, fibers and spores.

I

Interior demolition: Interior demolition, also called selective demolition, is the controlled removal of interior walls, ceilings, floors and fixtures while the building shell and the parts that stay are protected.
Ion exchange: Ion exchange is a water treatment process in which porous resin beads capture PFAS ions from water as it passes through, trading them for harmless ions.

L

Lead abatement: Lead abatement is work designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint hazards, and in Missouri the Department of Health and Senior Services licenses the workers and firms that do it.
Lead-based paint: Lead-based paint is paint that contains lead, banned for use in homes in 1978, and it remains common in older Missouri houses where peeling or friction can create harmful dust.

M

Mastic: Mastic is the dark, tar-like adhesive that held down old vinyl and linoleum tile, and in older buildings it often contains asbestos, so it needs lab testing before anyone removes it.
MBE (Minority Business Enterprise): Minority Business Enterprise, or MBE, is a business at least 51 percent owned and controlled by one or more minority persons, as defined by the Missouri Office of Equal Opportunity.
MCL (maximum contaminant level): Maximum contaminant level, or MCL, is the highest level of a contaminant that federal law allows in public drinking water, and it is an enforceable standard.
Moisture barrier: Moisture barrier is a membrane or coating that blocks water vapor moving up through a concrete slab, protecting flooring, adhesives and coatings from blistering, peeling and mold.
Mold inspection: Mold inspection is a visual and moisture survey, sometimes with samples, that finds visible mold, hidden dampness and the water source behind them before any cleanup plan is written.
Mold remediation: Mold remediation is the process of fixing the moisture source, containing the area, removing contaminated material and cleaning, so that indoor mold returns to normal background levels.
Mold spores: Mold spores are tiny reproductive cells that float through indoor and outdoor air and grow into colonies where they land on moisture and a food source such as wood, drywall or paper.

N

Negative air machine: Negative air machine is a HEPA-filtered fan unit that pulls air out of a sealed work area so air leaks inward, not outward, keeping dust, fibers and spores inside the containment.
NESHAP: NESHAP stands for National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, the federal rule in 40 CFR Part 61, Subpart M that sets asbestos work practices for building demolition and renovation.
Non-friable asbestos: Non-friable asbestos is bound in a hard material, such as floor tile, roofing or siding, that cannot be crumbled by hand pressure when dry, though cutting or sanding can still release fibers.

P

Parts per trillion (ppt): Parts per trillion, or ppt, is a unit equal to one part in a trillion, the scale used for PFAS in water; it is the same as nanograms per liter (ng/L).
PFAS: PFAS are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a large group of manmade fluorinated chemicals used in industry and consumer products since the 1940s, which break down very slowly in the environment.
PFOA: PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, is one of the best-studied PFAS and carries an EPA drinking water limit of 4.0 parts per trillion under the national PFAS drinking water rule.
PFOS: PFOS, or perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, is the second PFAS with its own federal drinking water limit, set at 4.0 parts per trillion, and it has been widely studied alongside PFOA.
Polished concrete: Polished concrete is a slab that has been ground and honed through a series of finer diamond abrasives, with a densifier, to a smooth, low-maintenance sheen without a coating.

R

Regulated asbestos-containing material (RACM): Regulated asbestos-containing material, or RACM, is the class of asbestos that federal NESHAP rules control during demolition and renovation, including friable material and nonfriable material that sanding, grinding or cutting will break up.
RRP rule: RRP rule is EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule, which requires certified firms and trained workers to use lead-safe work practices on paid work that disturbs paint in pre-1978 housing.

S

Soil remediation: Soil remediation is the treatment or removal of contaminated soil so that a site meets cleanup standards and can be safely used, sold or built on.

U

Underground storage tank (UST): Underground storage tank, or UST, is a tank system with at least 10 percent of its combined volume underground that holds petroleum or certain hazardous substances.

X

XRF analyzer: XRF analyzer is a handheld X-ray fluorescence device that reads the amount of lead in paint on a surface in seconds, without scraping, cutting or damaging the paint.

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