Interstitial Lung Diseases (ILD’s) are a common effect from long term exposure to dust particulates that get into the deep workings of your lungs. Here it becomes lodged, here it causes irreparable damage to your lungs. This means the solid particulates – fine dust basically – are small enough to pass into the deep workings of your lungs, into the soft tissues and gas exchange chambers. The average human hair is around 100 microns and human eyes can see below 30 microns unaided.
The largest particulate in solder fume is around 10 microns and the smallest is around 0.3 microns. The solid particulates, regardless if they are “Non-Toxic” or “Clean” are still foreign bodies in your lungs. The dangers of Carbon Monoxide are very well documented and Formaldehyde has been linked with causing serious breathing problems, has been linked to cancer, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), damage to the nervous system, nausea, vomiting, mood changes and depression, insomnia…. Most of the Gases listed above have well documented adverse effects on our health. The gases, even though a small amount, can include: Acetones, Methyl Alcohol, Formaldehyde, Carbon Dioxide, Diterpene Acid, Carbon Monoxide and Isopropanol Alcohol.
But even if you are using Rosin free solder, then the replacement materials still produce a fume. A solder fume from Rosin based solder even has its own name – Colophony Fume. The solid particulates are made up from parts of the solder flux itself. The “smoke” is a complex mixture of 95% solid particulates and 5% gases and vapours. What is solder fume?įumes from hand soldering is the plume of “smoke” that is created during a soldering process when the solder flux is heated above 183 oC. To understand why it harms us and how we can control it we need to know what makes up a solder fume and how it behaves. It does not matter whether you are using Rosin based solder, Rosin free solder, Lead based solder or Lead free solder – the process of soldering produces harmful airborne contaminates that are hazardous to our health. Solder fume is no different, but it has been studied probably in more depth than most types of fume in the work place. We know around 90 – 95% of a fume is solid particulate with around 5 – 10% being gases and vapours. We know a fume is made from heating up solid matter to the point it “vaporises”. We have covered what a “fume” is in many articles and posts on our website. Soldering is still a major process in the electronics industries and the dangers of solder fume are well known.
In this post we are going to cover one of the most documented and studied airborne contaminates in the work place to date – Solder Fume.