![]() ![]() ![]() If you ever feel dizzy, or it’s hard to breathe, move away from the fumes into fresh air.Try to melt plastic at the lowest possible temperature for the shortest amount of time.And make sure your gas mask is fitted properly! Don’t use a regular dust mask, that won’t work! Make sure you use an activated carbon filter gas mask.When working with PS or ABS, make sure you don’t melt it for more than 8 hours per week, and always use a gas mask and ventilation.Never melt unseparated plastic, because different plastic types have different melting temperatures, meaning some plastic will burn before others are melted.Residues from cleaning products can create harmful fumes. Fumes were still coming out for 7 minutes at the cold press stage.If heating is uneven fumes come out from certain overheated areas.Most fumes come out from all four sides.For example, when making a beam, fumes come out at the end of beam mold.Some fumes from hopper when not blocked by pellets and from the mold openings.Fumes come out of the hopper when the injector handle is up.Fumes come out from the nozzle when you take off the mold.Ok, so where do fumes come out of Precious Plastic machines? ![]() In conclusion, our biggest threat is styrene vapor formed from PS melting.įor more detail, visit: Fume Sources from Precious Plastic machines We used a commonly used regulation: the maximum 3-hour concentration of hydrocarbon content is 0.24 ppm, not to be exceeded for more than a year. We also detected where the fumes come from in each machine (more on that below). PS created 5 times more fumes than HDPE and PP: this means that HDPE and PP are very low in cyclic compounds. In our workspace we detected fumes 2 cm from the source and it was approximately 14 times higher than the recommended maximum. When air enters the PID, a UV light interacts with the molecules in the air - organic compounds release positively charged ions when they pass through the light which are then captured by a negatively charged plate, producing measurable electrical current. The advantage of using a PID sensor is that it’s very accurate and can be handheld, allowing us to design a flexible fume extraction system that we can move around. Fume Testsįor fume testing, we use a PID detector, which stands for photoionization - this detects the fume safety levels for VOC’s and can inform us where exactly the fumes are coming from. PVC and PA are low in fumes but the contents are harmful to melt. The safest plastic to melt is PP and PE because they are low in cyclic compounds and they are essentially refined wax. Luckily, all of these cyclic compounds can be easily filtered with activated carbon, but more on that later! Benzene is a human carcinogen, and styrene and ethyl benzene are probable carcinogens (probable carcinogen means that the compounds have not yet proven to cause cancer). The studies concluded that ABS and PS created the most fumes: approximately 5 to 7 times more than the other plastics.įumes from ABS and PS contain styrene, benzene and ethylbenzene - these compounds are called cyclic compounds which create a lot of fumes and may cause cancer. These fumes are also called Volatile Organic Compounds and are very dangerous - immediate effects are severe irritation to the eyes, nose and lungs and prolonged exposure to fumes of any synthetic plastic with no safety precautions can lead to cancer, birth defects and illnesses.Īs seen in the graph below, fume contents of common plastics were studied by the Air and Waste Management Association, Chinese Academy of Sciences and The University of Tokyo. Volatile Organic Compounds (or VOC’s)Īll plastics are made up of large molecules and when melted they make smaller molecule as fumes. The most important thing about working with plastic: You can melt it, you just can’t burn it. If you do need to burn a small piece of plastic to identify its type, then do so taking the proper precautions: wearing a mask and beside a proper fume filtration system. At Precious Plastic, we don’t work with PVC. When burning PVC, dioxins are released which a highly toxic compound that has been shown to increase cancer, reproductive problems and immune system damage. It can also greatly damage internal organs and the hormonal system. Very harmful toxins are released when burning plastic and can significantly increase the chances of cancer, respiratory illnesses and birth defects. Why? It is extremely harmful to you, those around you and the environment. ![]()
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