The shape, size, and adsorbing nature of the fibers also appear to be critically important. Recently, doubts have arisen concerning the safety of commercially available carbon nanotubes,[2] which may possess the same carcinogenicity as asbestos fibers because of their similar characteristics. Ample care has to be taken to prevent a tragedy similar to the one caused by asbestos exposure.[1]
[1] http://www.med.nagoya-u.ac.jp/medlib/nagoya_j_med_sci/7112/p... [PDF]
[2] http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v3/n7/abs/nnano.2008.111...
On making nanotubes less dangerous: Shorter is better http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201207664/ab...
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[1] The german title is "Bundeswehr warnt vor Krebs durch Carbonfasern", and From the German wikipedia page "Carbonfasern" ...
The fibers are mainly for the production of carbon fiber reinforced plastic used (CFRP = Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic). Derived from the English, the abbreviation CFRP (is english Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic) used.
E.g. former F1 driver Mika Salo underwent surgery where his lungs were examined to assess the effects of repeated exposure to burned carbon fiber dust (this was several years ago). Unfortunately, I do not have any links to sources nor do I know the results of the research.
Another big question mark is the health and environmental effects of graphene. There is a lot of research going on in applications of graphene but only now there have been research projects into possible negative effects on the environment.
Apparently the surgery was unrelated, they found lots of carbon brake dust in his lungs purely by chance. No conclusion on whether it is dangerous or not.
Edit: grahamel was quicker :)
Another problem with the disease is the proverbial 18 year old apprentice steamfitter could die of lung cancer in his relatively young late 40s which is epidemiologically very interesting and easy to detect. There are some young 20-something F-1 drivers who are barely old enough to drink booze, but if a 40 year old driver finally today inhales "the" fiber that would kill him 40 years later, that is rather moot if he dies at 65 of a totally unrelated heart attack or 70 of an unrelated cancer.
So there are two problems: There are not many possible victims resulting in perhaps less than one cancer as a result, and some of the drivers are "really old" by SV programmer standards and the cancer is really slow to kill, so they'll die long before the cancer takes hold.
So... by analogy, if smoking pot will kill me from lung cancer in 30 years, that is rather motivational when told to 10 year olds, but I don't think it'll discourage many new social security recipients from taking up the pipe. In fact that sounds like a fun idea to me.
http://www.jimlangley.net/ride/bicyclehistorywh.html (its at the bottom of the page in the timeline)
As with all manufacturing processes, I'm pretty sure in 1975, it wasn't nearly as precise or safe it is now and am wondering how many people were exposed to these fumes. If you wanted a good control group, I'd think they would be a prime candidate to examine the effects of this on the lungs.
But while driving it does not look like the driver would be affected by it: http://www.ozeninc.com/images/hpc-carmesh-2.jpg
Seems like the concern was correct, but misplaced. We had a plane catch fire on a taxiway and burn, and no electrical mayhem resulted. Perhaps we should have worn our gas masks -- but we didn't know at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-114/B_%22Soft-Bomb%22
Interesting, that a plane from 1988 had warnings and concerns for a bomb that wouldn't be used until 1999. I wonder when the US first had one ready to go. What year was your experience?
Now it's a civilian airport where RyanAir tricks people into thinking they're flying into Frankfurt -- an additional 90-minute bus ride away (there's a reason why the airfare is so cheap!)
Put another way, every “black speck” you found did not reach your lungs (although I doubt that this is particularly healthy, either…) :)
That's not at all true. Some things are more, some things are less.
Incompletely burned plastic? More. Full burned? Less. Gasoline? Less. Mercury? More. Arsenic? Less.
And there are levels of dangerous, based on size and shape of microparticles.
Carbon fiber once burned at high temperature breaks down sufficiently for it to penetrate mucous membranes. The risk highlighted by the Germans here relates to the ash left over after the fire. i.e. Hinting a potential long term dangers / contamination from the ash floating around.
The epoxy is also pretty nasty too. If you don't wear the right personal protective equipment when using it, you can quickly become sensitized to it. I don't know what that means medically, but it can't be good. I have always worn the right gear when building things, but it is clearly harmful to you without proper ventilation and separation from your skin.
I love composites, but they definitely have downsides.
I'm too lazy to run the exact numbers but its going to work out to something like a trainload of coal per diamond on a total mass of the earth basis.
