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vegplot

Eeek. Dangers of car DIY

We've all heard tales of people injuring or killing themselves while performing DIY car mechanics (I know someone whose brother was crushed to death under a vehicle) but what I didn't know was ...

Quote:
Certain types and synthetic rubber such as that found in O rings, oil seals, fuel hoses etc. when exposed to temps above 400C generate hydrofluoric acid. This can remain active for years and if it get onto skin may mean the limb has to be amputated.


I read this while munching on toasted Soreen in a Haynes manual. Choking hazard.
oldish chris

I don't believe it. Using my favourite search engine I found a Material Safety Data Sheet for hydrofluoric acid. The dangers are, as expected, on immediate contact with the acid. Low concentrations of hydrogen fluoride in the air are more of an irritant:
Quote:
Chronic Potential Health Effects: Repeated exposure to airborne concentrations of 3 ppm or less could be tolerated with no apparent ill effects for 6 hours/day for up to 50 days;


I would have thought that the products of partially combusted plastic would be more dangerous.
vegplot

Change your search engine...

"(c) Skin Contact: Corrosive to the skin. Skin contact causes serious skin burns which may not be immediately apparent or painful. Symptoms may be delayed 8 hours or longer. The fluoride ion readily penetrates the skin causing destruction of deep tissue layers and even bone."
Nick

Toasted Soreen contains acrylamide, which is an accumulative neurotoxin, which can cause cancer increasing tumors in the nervous system, oral cavity, peritoneum, thyroid gland, mammary gland, uterus, and clitoris.
vegplot

I wondered where that had got to.
oldish chris

Change your search engine...

"(c) Skin Contact: Corrosive to the skin. Skin contact causes serious skin burns which may not be immediately apparent or painful. Symptoms may be delayed 8 hours or longer. The fluoride ion readily penetrates the skin causing destruction of deep tissue layers and even bone."
are you thinking of a concentrated aqueous solution of HF or a whiff of smoke that may contain several ppm?
vegplot

Change your search engine...

"(c) Skin Contact: Corrosive to the skin. Skin contact causes serious skin burns which may not be immediately apparent or painful. Symptoms may be delayed 8 hours or longer. The fluoride ion readily penetrates the skin causing destruction of deep tissue layers and even bone."
are you thinking of a concentrated aqueous solution of HF or a whiff of smoke that may contain several ppm?

See OP.
Treacodactyl

I'm sure I've read something similar before, I've always disliked the sound of hydrofluoric acid (don't you use it to etch number plate details onto the glass of a car? (or make Prozac?)).

Question is, do latex rubber gloves keep it off?
derbyshiredowser

I use it to etch glass in gel form I use rubber chemical gloves, face mask and goggles and work outside pokey stuff. Mistress Rose

The main danger of hydrofluoric acid is during and after a vehicle fire. PTFE coating on cables is a major source.

As far as doing maintenance on vehicles is concerned, don't use heat near any plastic or rubber; apart from anything else you will damage it, and it could well give of a variety of toxic fumes.

No, latex gloves are not really enough. Heavy duty rubber gloves for working with chemicals are needed, and if you are using the liquid, it should be used under safety controlled conditions, not at home. Not come across the gel, but use strict safely precautions, and personally, I would be wary of using even that at home, but then I was a chemist with a lively sense of self preservation. Very Happy Sorry, but it can attack bone, and is a nasty acid.
Barefoot Andrew

Re: Eeek. Dangers of car DIY

toasted Soreen in a Haynes manual.

You need to work on your sandwich recipes.
A.
Nick

HFl is used to dispose of bodies.

Just saying.
vegplot

Re: Eeek. Dangers of car DIY

toasted Soreen in a Haynes manual.

You need to work on your sandwich recipes.
A.

A real man's recipe book.
dpack

nasty stuff ,i would not want to use it at home or in a lab.

when i worked at ici hf was treated as a specialist reagent and handled by the old folks same as hcn and flurine .they let me play with naps , 2000 psi h2/catalysts and various other moody or potentially very toxic reagents
sometimes in new conditions that have not been tried before it was interesting and occasionally rather too exiting when nitrating things , i still would not want to play with hf.

hf is useful to get the first 4 f into hex (f2 for the last pair )it wouldnt want to work at that either Rolling Eyes
Dee J

HF... Much used in the semiconductor industry. First aid and security always equipped with a calcium rich cream to apply in case of accidental skin contact. AFAIK HF attacks the calcium in bone and by the time any symptoms are apparent much damage has already occurred. Shocked
Dee
vegplot

nasty stuff ,i would not want to use it at home or in a lab.

when i worked at ici hf was treated as a specialist reagent and handled by the old folks same as hcn and flurine .they let me play with naps , 2000 psi h2/catalysts and various other moody or potentially very toxic reagents
sometimes in new conditions that have not been tried before it was interesting and occasionally rather too exiting when nitrating things , i still would not want to play with hf.

hf is useful to get the first 4 f into hex (f2 for the last pair )it wouldnt want to work at that either Rolling Eyes

I'd feel safer using a hedge flail as a tooth pick.
Mistress Rose

HF is used mainly in making the integrated circuits. I usually worked on making them into something useful and packaging them so nobody could put their fingers all over them. Did use fluoboric acid in a tin-lead plating bath in the dim and distant past though. Hope it has been superseded by something a bit less nasty these days. Woodburner

I'm pretty sure it has been replaced with a toned down version, at least for etching. Friend of husband's wanted some for some sort of etching, Dad said no way is that what he really wants, it's seriously nasty etc. Anyway, we couldn't find any but we did find etching fluid which did just what he wanted, still had some dire warnings, but not so nasty as HF. Nick

Toasted Soreen contains acrylamide, which is an accumulative neurotoxin, which can cause cancer increasing tumors in the nervous system, oral cavity, peritoneum, thyroid gland, mammary gland, uterus, and clitoris.

See. I bloody told you.
dpack

Very Happy

i didnt like to mention it in case i restarted the roast potato wars.
Jam Lady

Aqua regia. Way back in the dark ages when I worked in the technician's lab in college I mixed some up (under supervision) for Mr Jam Lord and he used it to etch a dragon into sterling sliver for a belt buckle. dpack

A R works but there are safer chemical alternatives for etching silver, best etching method is electro etching which is pretty safe so long as you don't drink the liquid Laughing

the best way to make silver into a 3D interesting shape is to make the shape in wax and post it to some nice chaps we know in scotland who will lost wax cast it for the metal price + 25% .

i think nick was referring to a recent UK gov medical report about toasted food and over cooked spuds where the "dangers" although real are far smaller and less immediate than those of alkali metal azides Rolling Eyes ( i dont like them any more, long story but .... ) or the bad end of corrosives, poisons, unstable explosives, sneaky inflammables and moody oxidising agents. chemistry is fun but one should know where to stop.

a while ago i read a rather good but extreme recipe book that included the phrase " if it starts to smoke tip the pot into the river immediately or else you will very soon be dead " (going by the rest of the book i suspect that was based on direct observational experience )
pretty good h and s advice but as that sort of improvisation does not appeal to me it wont be an issue Laughing
Mistress Rose

You can also plate up precious metals. I once saw a gold belt buckle being plated up for some middle eastern potentate. They left it in the plating bath for days.

An accidental 'home chemistry' that sometimes used to cause people to end up in A&E was mixing bleach and toilet cleaner containing acid to make sure the toilet was really clean. It gives off chlorine, which of course was used as poison gas during WWI. I think most bleach is now peroxide based, so just tends to foam rather badly when mixed with acid.
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