Re: X-ray film capacitors

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Original poster: "Dr. Duncan Cadd by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <dunckx-at-freeuk-dot-com>

Hi Marc, All!

>is there anything toxic in the "coatings" of these plates? because
most
>plastics are actually identified by the "burn and sniff" test,
>polyethylene has the "sweetish" odor that we mostly know and mylar
has
>an acrid smell like acid, propylene kind of smells like a cross
between
>styrene and polyethylene and so on. these smells and the flame
>characteristics are well documented in plastics engineering and may
be
>found on some web sites? if you have a piece of mylar handy give it a
>light and "waft" the fumes for a VERY LIGHT sniff then compare, but
do
>this very lightly and please if there are any polymer men out there,
>please comment.

I suppose that with any plastics based on aromatics (mylar is one)
there is a chance of carcinogenic fumes, but at a very very low level.
I can also think of other plastics I would rather not sniff if they
had been burned (PTFE comes to mind).  Your directions to WAFT the
fumes towards your nose from a distance rather than stick your nose
close and inhale are spot on.  Follow that and you are unlikely to
come to any harm.


Of all the stuff crammed into us by our lecturers, I have to confess
that the "burn and sniff" test escaped my polymer education entirely!
Evidently the apparatus required to conduct the analysis is not
expensive enough, doesn't go "beep", can't be hooked up to a computer
and doesn't produce pretty diagrams for publication.  You want to keep
this quiet - if the manufacturers of half million dollar spectrometers
got to hear about this one I dread the consequences ;-)

I'm sure my old Prof would love it!  Point me to a website quick!

Dunckx
Geek#1113 (G-1)