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German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

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Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#41

Post by genericuser »

001sky wrote: post #30
mxfh wrote: post #5

Since the carcinogenic effect of asbestos is mostly caused by it's physical properties[1]; anything that resembles the shape of asbestos' micro-particles is also highly suspected to be carcinogenic. 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 carc…

It's probably worth making the distinction that most people are exposed to "Carbon Fiber" as CRP[1], not "raw carbon fibers". And it is the ~aersolized bits raw carbon/dusts (the subject of this article) that are problematic. _________ [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…

Much like asbestos siding in that regard, where its not exactly being pumped into the air by most people, but people who work with it, for example sanding it, create a health hazard.

Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#42

Post by JoeAltmaier »

simias wrote: post #35
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Danger to others that share a gene line IS part of natural selection. That's why most creatures don't cannibalize within their family/pack for instance.

That's not what the OP was talking about however. The fact that carbon fibers are not present in nature only tells us that we didn't have to evolve anything protecting us from it if it's really dangerous (since it was never a selection criteria). That doesn't mean it's necessarily harmful though.

Disagree; OP was talking about why no animal in nature produces carbon fibre, given its dangerous to others nearby. Was it ecological pressure? I answered, yes that's possible.

Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#43

Post by simias »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #42
simias wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the OP was talking about however. The fact that carbon fibers are not present in nature only tells us that we didn't have to evolve anything protecting us from it if it's really dangerous (since it was never a selection criteria). That doesn't mean it's necessarily harmful though.

Disagree; OP was talking about why no animal in nature produces carbon fibre, given its dangerous to others nearby. Was it ecological pressure? I answered, yes that's possible.

Carbon fibers are pretty complex to produce, that alone can explain why they're not naturally present in nature. It would be similar to wondering why silicon microprocessors are not naturally synthesized by nature.

It doesn't necessarily mean that evolution ruled it out, just that it may never have considered it in the first place because it never came to exist under the stochastic process of evolution.

Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#44

Post by jpindar »

genericuser wrote: post #41
001sky wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably worth making the distinction that most people are exposed to "Carbon Fiber" as CRP[1], not "raw carbon fibers". And it is the ~aersolized bits raw carbon/dusts (the subject of this article) that are problematic. _________ [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…

Much like asbestos siding in that regard, where its not exactly being pumped into the air by most people, but people who work with it, for example sanding it, create a health hazard.

And indeed one way of making existing asbestos building materials safe (or at least, safer) is by spraying plastic on them to encapsulate them.

Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#45

Post by JabavuAdams »

splawn wrote: post #27
Kallikrates wrote: post #21

In another life I had to take aircraft crash response training, and was in charge of recovery (salvage, battle-field repair etc). The response to an aircraft with composite materials is totally different. With normal construction we could get to work as soon as the fire, was out and any hazardous liquids were taken care of. Crashes involving damage to composite structures required that the damaged areas be sprayed do…

A long time ago a coworker told me about this. He told me it was because the dust was conductive and would wreck havoc with electronics.

I've heard an anecdote along these lines, too. It was about a lathe that had been exposed to carbon-fiber dust starting to turn when supposedly off.

Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#46

Post by JabavuAdams »

Kallikrates wrote: post #21

In another life I had to take aircraft crash response training, and was in charge of recovery (salvage, battle-field repair etc). The response to an aircraft with composite materials is totally different. With normal construction we could get to work as soon as the fire, was out and any hazardous liquids were taken care of. Crashes involving damage to composite structures required that the damaged areas be sprayed do…

There's all kinds of nasty stuff in and around aerospace / military wrecks. It always boggles my mind when I see kids playing on wrecked equipment. DU aerosols, hydrazine, CF aerosols, and who knows what else.

Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#47

Post by ars »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #39
nodata wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you wash the carbon fiber dust out of the lungs?

Washing air-breathing lungs with water sounds problematic, although with fluro-carbons and the prevalence of lung cancer I am not going to say no-one hasn't tried !

You could wash one lung at a time. Or use extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

Water in an of itself won't hurt lungs as long as the patient gets enough oxygen.

Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#48

Post by ars »

milge wrote: post #4
rnernento wrote: post #3

From the Google translated version of the article it looks like it's only dangerous when burned.

To be fair, most things are dangerous when burned.

> To be fair, most things are dangerous when burned.

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.

Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#49

Post by JabavuAdams »

chiph wrote: post #25

The USAF was concerned at one point that should an F-16 burn on a runway, it would release carbon-fiber strands which would float around the base and short out electrical equipment (communications gear, phone switch, power generation, etc). 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 --…

I'd be more worried about the tank of hydrazine in an F-16.

Re: German armed forces warn that carbon fiber might be cancer-causing

#50

Post by FreeFull »

ars wrote: post #47
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washing air-breathing lungs with water sounds problematic, although with fluro-carbons and the prevalence of lung cancer I am not going to say no-one hasn't tried !

You could wash one lung at a time. Or use extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Water in an of itself won't hurt lungs as long as the patient gets enough oxygen.

I imagine you would have to use saline rather than plain water to avoid the lung cells bursting due to osmosis.
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