Now this makes more sense, as opposed to the statement that zinc is "deathly toxic."
Actually, any nutritionist would tell you that zinc (in low milligram daily quantities)
is a vitally important nutrient for one's physical well-being and a deficiency of
zinc in our diets leads to a catergory of unpleasnt symptoms of its own. It stands
to reason that the problems from inhaling zinc "fumes" are due to the mechanism of
inflammation of the lung tissues and not necessarily from physiological toxicity.
Â
David Rieben
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tesla Coil Mailing List <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 8:48 AM
Subject: Re: [TCML] DC Coil progress.
On 11/22/13 5:32 AM, Futuret wrote:
> I've heard that vaporized zinc (from the galvanizing) is
> extremely toxic. Whenever I've tried using brass
> electrodes they eroded away very quickly. I've had
> much better results with copper electrodes. Others
> may have had different results, but I thought I'd
> mention it.
>
I don't know about "extremely". It's zinc oxide, which is non-toxic, but it does cause "tinner's tummy" or "zinc fume fever" and welders who have to work with galvanized iron often call in sick the next day, although the mechanism is unclear. There are some theories that there is zinc chloride involved, or that it is a general reaction to a foreign material/heavy metal.
It's not in the Hydrogen Cyanide, Hydrogen Sulfide sort of class. The IDLH (Immediately dangerous to life and health) for H2S is 100 ppm (150 mg/m3). The ACGIH recommendation for H2S is 1 ppm (1.4 mg/m3) TWA. HCN is similar (IDLH of 50ppm, typically tolerated by humans for 30min, 100-130 ppm is fatal after 0.5-1 hr)
As it happens, the OSHA Permissible Exposure limit for Zinc Oxide Fumes is quite low: 5mg/m3 total weighted average (TWA) over 8 hour day. but there's no IDLH level, and it's not clear that you can die (immediately) from it. CDC says:"Studies in the workplace have shown that welders exposed to zinc oxide fume at concentrations of 320 to 580 mg/m3 reported nausea, with the development of chills, shortness of breath, and severe chest pains 2 to 12 hours later." And some guinea pigs gave up the ghost: "The animals in the high-exposure group (2500 mg/m3 for three to four hours) died after exposure."
But the 2.5 GRAMS/cubic meter that caused the rodent demise is a LOT of fumes. It would be an exceedingly dense cloud at that level. You could probably see the particulate fumes at 10mg/m3.
pubmed has
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11094787
The OSHA(etc) limit is 5mg/m3 total weighted average (TWA) over 8 hour day.
Zinc oxide fume is a respiratory irritant that causes metal fume fever and can temporarily decrease lung function for up to 48 hours after exposure (ACGIH 2003).
The effects of metal fume fever may be delayed a few hours after initial exposure (NIOSH/IPCS 2004).
The inhalation of zinc oxide at the PEL concentration for two hours by naïve subjects was reported to trigger an inflammatory response involving the release of cytokines, thought to mediate the symptoms of metal fume fever (chills, elevated body temperature, myalgia, cough, fatigue, chest pain, nausea, and vomiting) that peaked about nine hours after exposure. Prior zinc oxide exposure resulted in the development of some tolerance (desensitization) to these inflammatory effects (Fine et al. 2000; Kuschner et al. 1997).
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