Dan Solliday on mon 26 sep 05
Does nylon give off any toxic or harmful vapor when it burns? Will it
damage an electric kiln?
Steve Slatin on mon 26 sep 05
Dan --
AFAIK, the risk from burning nylon is hydrogen
cyanide. I don't offhand know how much you're
proposing to burn or how to calculate the rate of
production of cyanide, but the risk isn't going to be
to your kiln, it'll be to you breathing the fumes.
Very small quantities of hydrogen cyanide are of no
risk since your body also creates small amounts of
cyanide to use it in normal metabolism. A healthy
person's body can simply metabolize it (IIRC, your
body turns it into thiocyanate and then you excrete it
through the kidneys, though my recollection of this is
foggy).
Of course, we should all be venting our kilns and
avoiding close contact with the fumes already ...
Best wishes -- Steve (no, I'm still saving up for a
vent myself) Slatin
--- Dan Solliday wrote:
> Does nylon give off any toxic or harmful vapor when
> it burns? Will it
> damage an electric kiln?
Steve Slatin --
Drove downtown in the rain
9:30 on a Tuesday night
Just to check out the
Late night record shop
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Edouard Bastarache Inc. on mon 26 sep 05
Steve,
here is what I found in a MSDS supplied on the Net :
From Wellman Inc.
Decomposition Products :
Heating the polymer near or above its melting point (430°F), such as in
injection molding operations, may release small amounts of organic
decomposition products such as acrid fumes, toxic oxides of nitrogen, amine
type fumes, ammonia.
Burning the polymer may produce the same decomposition products and dense
smoke.
Later,
"Ils sont fous ces quebecois"
"They are insane these quebekers"
"Están locos estos quebequeses"
Edouard Bastarache
Irreductible Quebecois
Indomitable Quebeker
Sorel-Tracy
Quebec
edouardb@sorel-tracy.qc.ca
www.sorel-tracy.qc.ca/~edouardb/Welcome.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/potier/
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/smart2000/index.htm
http://www.digitalfire.com/education/toxicity/
Steve Slatin on tue 27 sep 05
Edouard --
Many thanks -- I looked up the Wellman MSDS, and it
seems pretty clear, at least as regards their nylon
pellets -- doubting my recollection of burning nylon
issues, I did a search, and found a Swedish National
Testing and Research Institute report
(http://www.sp.se/fire/Abstracts/Abstract%202003_10.html)
that show that a recycling of combustion products
INCREASES the HCN production (so, presumably, there is
*some* HCN produced). An interesting hint, but not a
specific bit of information such as we were looking
for ...
I kept looking, and found
http://www.inchem.org/documents/antidote/antidote/ant02.htm#SectionNumber:1.2
Which is more on point, and has a great chart giving
the secret number we were looking for earlier --
Table 1. Hydrogen cyanide generated by pyrolysis
µg HCN per
Material g material
paper 1100
cotton 130
wool 6300
nylon 780
polyurethane foam 1200
From: Montgomery et al. (1975)
So now we have an absolute HCN production amount and,
more significantly, it's pretty small. Also, for
comprehension's sake, there's a relative value -- it's
about a tenth as much produced as from wool (by
equivalent weight).
This could make us more comfortable with burning
nylon, but I'll stay out of the studio when the kiln's
firing anyway ... my own theory remains that silica
dust and CO/CO2 are the biggest risks for potters, but
I like to get everything else down as far as possible
anyway.
Best wishes -- Steve S.
--- "Edouard Bastarache Inc."
wrote:
> Steve,
>
> here is what I found in a MSDS supplied on the Net :
>
> From Wellman Inc.
>
>
> Decomposition Products :
>
>
>
> Heating the polymer near or above its melting point
> (430°F), such as in
> injection molding operations, may release small
> amounts of organic
> decomposition products such as acrid fumes, toxic
> oxides of nitrogen, amine
> type fumes, ammonia.
>
> Burning the polymer may produce the same
> decomposition products and dense
> smoke.
Steve Slatin --
Drove downtown in the rain
9:30 on a Tuesday night
Just to check out the
Late night record shop
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