What does talc make

A form of talc known as " soapstone " is also widely known. This soft rock is easily carved and has been used to make ornamental and practical objects for thousands of years. It has been used to make sculptures, bowls, countertops, sinks, hearths, pipe bowls, and many other objects.

Although talcum powder and soapstone are two of the more visible uses of talc, they account for a very small fraction of talc consumption. Its hidden uses are far more common.

Talc's unique properties make it an important ingredient for making ceramics, paint, paper, roofing materials, plastics, rubber, insecticides, and many other products.

Talc: Talc is a phyllosilicate mineral that cleaves into thin sheets. These sheets are held together only by van der Waals bonds, which allows them to easily slip past one another.

This characteristic is responsible for talc's extreme softness, its greasy to soapy feel, and its value as a high-temperature lubricant. Although the composition of talc usually stays close to this generalized formula, some substitution occurs. When large amounts of Fe substitute for Mg, the mineral is known as minnesotaite. When large amounts of Al substitute for Mg, the mineral is known as pyrophyllite. Talc is usually green, white, gray, brown, or colorless. It is a translucent mineral with a pearly luster.

It is the softest known mineral and is assigned a hardness of 1 on the Mohs Hardness scale. Talc is a monoclinic mineral with a sheet structure similar to the micas. Talc has perfect cleavage that follows planes between the weakly bonded sheets. These sheets are held together only by van der Waals bonds, which allows them to slip past one another easily. This characteristic is responsible for talc's extreme softness, its greasy, soapy feel, and its value as a high-temperature lubricant.

In the United States, talc consumption has slowly declined since Smaller amounts of the mineral are used in the ceramics industry because of a change in firing technology. In the paint industry, a shift from oil-based paints to latex paints has decreased the use of talc. In the cosmetics industry, many manufacturers have replaced talc with corn starch powder in many products in response to health concerns and litigation. However, the plastics industry is using more talc, as the mineral becomes a more important ingredient in automotive plastics.

The amount of talc used in rubber production has also increased slightly. Mines in the United States have the ability to produce most grades of talc to make the United States self-sufficient.

However, some grades of talc can be imported from other countries at lower costs. This reduces employment and revenue and domestic mining and processing companies. Numerous other countries are minor producers of talc. Soapstone: A rock known as " soapstone " is a massive variety of talc with varying amounts of other minerals such as micas, chlorite, amphiboles, and pyroxenes. It is a soft rock that is easy to work, and that has caused it to be used in a wide variety of dimension stone and sculpture applications.

It is used for counter tops, electrical panels, hearthstones, figurines, statuary, and many other projects. Talc is a mineral that is most often found in the metamorphic rocks of convergent plate boundaries. It forms from at least two processes. Most large talc deposits in the United States formed when heated waters carrying dissolved magnesium and silica reacted with dolomitic marbles. A second process of talc formation occurred when heat and chemically active fluids altered rocks such as dunite and serpentinite into talc.

Most of the talc deposits in the United States are in metamorphic rocks on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains and in rocks metamorphosed in convergent terranes of Washington, Idaho, Montana, California, Nevada, and New Mexico. Deposits of talc are also found in Texas. It is an important filler in paints, rubber and insecticides. Talc often replaces other minerals atom by atom to form pseudomorphs, taking the form of the replaced mineral.

Thus, a specimen of what appears to be milky quartz would actually be talc, having a soapy feel and being able to be scratched with a fingernail. When working underground, miners can also be exposed to other substances that might affect lung cancer risk, such as radon. Talc use has not been strongly linked to other cancers, although not all possible links with other cancers have been studied extensively. One study suggested genital talcum powder use may slightly increase the risk of endometrial uterine cancer in women who are past menopause.

But other studies have not found such a link. Further studies are needed to explore this topic. Some limited research has also looked at a possible link between inhaled talc exposure at work and other cancers, such as stomach cancer. But there is no strong evidence of such links at this time.

Several national and international agencies study substances in the environment to determine if they can cause cancer. A substance that causes cancer or helps cancer grow is called a carcinogen. The American Cancer Society looks to these organizations to evaluate the risks based on evidence from laboratory, animal, and human research studies. Its major goal is to identify causes of cancer.

The NTP has not fully reviewed talc with or without asbestos as a possible carcinogen. For more information on the classification systems used by these agencies, see Known and Probable Human Carcinogens.

It is not clear if consumer products containing talcum powder increase cancer risk.