Researchers Getting the Lead Out of Electronics

alphadogg writes "Researchers at the University of Maryland say they have discovered a material to replace lead, a potential environmental hazard, in electronics products. The material, bismuth samarium ferrite (BSFO), was found by researchers in the university's A. James Clark School of Engineering. It can be used in products such as biomedical imaging devices and inkjet printers, and if implemented commercially could keep lead out of landfills and the ecosystem, they say. While manufacturers have developed replacements for lead in many products, until now no commercial replacement existed for lead zirconate titanate (PZT) — the material of choice for transducers, actuators, sensors and microelectromechanical systems used in common electronic devices, the university says."

Comments

What about radiation shielding?

[CRCulver]

Could this new metal shield against cosmic rays as well as lead? I'm reminded of the scene in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars where the inhabitants of a spacecraft have to hold out against an incoming solar flare and find their shielding woefully insufficient. A material that could block rays yet be lightweight and less toxic would no doubt be a boon to the space industry.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[mrmeval]

Water, boron gas, aluminum, etc you tailor it like Chobham armor in layers and with other tricks. You don't really want lead because of the density it doesn't matter much in space unless you're aiming 60 kilotons of it at DC.

We WILL become more green all this 'waste' is becoming the new gold. Help develop efficient technologies to evacuate landfills of the wealth in them and be the next Bill Grates.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[girlintraining]

New metal -- wait, what? I think you meant new alloy. And no, this new material shouldn't be any good for shielding; If anything, it would degrade more quickly in a radiation-rich environment than any of its base metals because of the oxygen. But I am not a chemist -- I'm just taking an educated guess here.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[networkBoy]

I was under the impression that a materials ability to block radiation was (more or less) proportional to it's density. Lead being the densest cheap metal making it ideal. while the mass may not be a problem once in space, it sure is a heck of a penalty in lift weight to get it there though.
-nB

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[peragrin]

So we can't throw 60 tons of lead at DC because the DC politicians are even more dense?

Sorry offtopic, but we are talking about dense things.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Cyberax]

Lead is NOT a good shield against cosmic rays. Fast charged particles cause a strong bremsstrahlung (braking radiation) in lead. That's also how X-Rays machines work - fast electrons are slammed into targets made of lead or tungsten.

High-density polyethylene, water or paraffin work much better for cosmic rays shielding.

Now, lead is great against gamma-rays. But they are not the principal danger of cosmic rays.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[DirtySouthAfrican]

It's all about cross section, which roughly depends on the incoming particle's energy being close to the energy of a bound state in the atoms of the material that is to absorb the radiation. The density contributes an overall factor to the calculation. Also, led is nasty when charged particles are involved (electrons, probably protons), because they will rapidly decelerate and create brehmstrahlung, so you've traded a charged particle which is easy to deflect with an X ray, which is not easy to reflect. My wife uses plexiglass shields in her lab for this reason, because it gracefully absorbs beta radiation.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[BluBrick]

Actually, extra mass is a problem even once it is in space. Manoeuvring all that extra mass requires greater amounts of energy, which is often somewhat in short supply.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Miseph]

Hey, no fair actually knowing how physics work! Here we are, all sci-FI about things, and you barge in with just sci... you must think you're sooooooo much better than the rest of us don't you?

Good day sir, I say good day.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[networkBoy]

so plexi laminate lead then?
stipulating that we are in space and thus need to protect against *everything* while maintaining a reasonable lift weight, I could see the plexi handling alpha, and beta, but what about gamma and x-rays?
-nB

BTW: had no idea about plexi shielding beta... how thick is required?

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Quantos]

Especially since changing the momentum of that mass requires fuel, lots of it - and that adds to the mass. At some point it becomes a vicious cycle, at least until a far more efficient propulsion system is put into place.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[ravenshrike]

Well, yeah, but on a space station where it's cheap(relatively speaking) to get more fuel it's not that big of a deal.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[evanbd]

It depends on the type of radiation you're shielding against. For lower energy but penetrating stuff -- x-rays and gamma rays -- it really only matters how much mass you have. Lead is nice because it makes the shielding thinner, but it doesn't change the weight. In space, you care about mass far more than volume (normally).

For other sorts of radiation (high energy cosmic rays in particular), lead can actually be very bad shielding. Cosmic rays mostly pass through, but if they hit a nucleus then you get a huge shower of mid-energy secondaries -- which cause far more damage than the original particle would have. So, a small or moderate amount of lead shielding makes the total dose go *up*. For those sorts of particles, you need lightweight nuclei: hydrogen is good, carbon and oxygen aren't bad; water and plastics work well. You also need some distance, to give the secondaries time to interact. So, the low density means you need less mass, and the lighter nuclei are more effective, making the lightweight stuff far better.

But, this is all fairly irrelevant, as they're talking about replacing lead-based crystals in piezo actuators and sensors, not lead that's being used for its bulk properties or even being used as solder.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[sFurbo]

It depends on the nature of the radiation. X-rays are more effectively scattered and absorbed by heavy materials (I think it is proportinal to the amount of electrons, which is nearly proportional to the mass), particles are most effectively stopped by something with about the same mass, as this make the momentum transferred in each collision bigger. As most particle radiation has masses around the masses of the lightest elements (most of it is protons), light elements do this better.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[zippthorne]

More or less proportional to it's electronic configuration to be precise. More states ~= better. But that scales nicely with mass. ish. Molecules complicate things.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Anonymous Coward]

And, for what it's worth, I also say "Good-day to you, Sir" And have a real good one while you're about it !!

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[squoozer]

Now correct me if I am wrong but back in my chemistry days I'm sure we used a copper target in the x-ray machine. Has a switch been made to lead targets then. I also remember that the single crystal machine (I did mostly powder diffraction work) used a block of lead on the far side to catch the non-scattered radiation. It was a mightly thick block of lead though so I imagine bremsstrahlung radiation wasn't much of a problem.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[marcosdumay]

Yes, particle radiation shielding is more or less proportional to density. That means that some mass of any material shields more or less the same way. Now, in space you want the more shielding, with less mass (even if it is a very small difference), density is not something that enters in that equation.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[marcosdumay]

It is probably cheapper to correct the defects caused by uncharged radiation that it is to shield it.

But, anyway, I'm do not deal with radiation shielding on a daily basis, so that is only a guess.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[INT_QRK]

Wow. What interesting excursions. Actually an effective replacement for lead in soldering may be extremely good news (if really effective), since removing lead from solder now results, among other things, in a condition called "tin whiskers" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy) which reduces the reliability and service life of electronic circuits. However, there does appear to be a nexus with this technology and space systems, which needs to operate reliably throughout its lifespan (upwards of ~15 years) in most cases without an option of economic repair.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[RichiH]

Preferably, said new propulsion system could run on lead.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[infalliable]

Density is important for shielding. The new chemical is probably not as dense as lead.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Kugala]

Ever seen a battleship firing a few heavy guns at once? Moves em quite a bit sideways, in water.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Cyberax]

You can use pretty much any heavy metal as a target.

Copper is used because it has good thermal conductivity and high melting point - only about 1% of energy is converted into x-rays, most of it is dissipated as heat.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Lumpy]

not completely you can easily make it into a foil that is very effective and still light. It's delicate as hell when you get it to the tinfoil thicknesses but sandwiched between two layers of aluminum foil it works incredibly well as a Xray and radiation shield. Far better than 10 thicknesses of Aluminum.

Just a tidbit from my College life experiences.. The lab professor was really pissy we were generating that high of Xray levels without shielding.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[RichiH]

I know one formation those space ships will not fly in..

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Hoi Polloi]

Since every ounce counts when getting something into orbit I don't see lead being a realistic choice in the first place.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to be absolutely precise, it's means IT IS. How come so many nerds know how the universe works from the quarks on up, but are absolutely baffled by the apostrophe?

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, you forgot to quote the "it's," and capitalised instead of properly quoting the "it is." Then you used a phrase in common speech which is not strictly correct, "How come..." when you meant to use "Why."

Punctuation is tricky. Especially when you only get one preview. How many things are wrong with these two paragraphs? I know it's not zero because I deliberately used the nonsense word, "Meh," and suspect there may be a slight overuse of commas at the very least.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[default luser]

Absolutely, it is. You can use a higher voltage and a process with larger feature sizes to make your electronics more resistent to a bit flip. The larger feature size and voltage means it takes more energy to flip a particular transistor, at the cost of larger circuits and more power consumed.

You have to add in some buffers to handle the sudden power spikes from particles, so your transistors themselves are safe from damage. Sure, you could still have radiation error events, but they're much less probable with the above setup. MUCH cheaper than lifting enough lead to shield the whole damn circuit board.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[hurfy]

"density is not something that enters in that equation."

Not entirely true is it?
If you are building a spaceship around 2 feet of foam instead of around 1" of lead or something it would be bigger requiring more material for outside skin adding mass and size without gaining more shielding.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[marcosdumay]

The structure needed to support the shields depends mostly on its weight, not size. If by using a 2 feet shield you could save a few kilograms, when compared to the thiner one, this difference will probably pay off.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Arterion]

I think the issues with lead on spacecrafts isn't being able to move it easily in space, but being able to get it off the ground and into space.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[mrmeval]

It's dense so it's mass makes it a problem getting it out of the gravity well and whenever you have to change it's speed or direction in space it eats energy. Just pick up a tennis ball and swing it around then do it with a cannon ball.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[Cor-cor]

We're still using copper targets in all the XRDs at Iowa State University (yes, Iowa, it's actually a very decent engineering school). I'm not aware they use anything else and can't see that many advantages to switch. The thermal properties of copper mentioned elsewhere make it a pretty good candidate. As opposed to lead, it has the distinct advantage of not becoming a molten pool as soon as the instrument is turned on.

And there's also the fact that it's been used pretty much exclusively for as long as XRD has. Changing the target metal would change the characteristic radiation given off- the one we used was the K(alpha) peak at 1.54 angstroms. The fact that this has been used as a standard since at least the fifties (as attested to by ancient tomes filled with XRD data) makes it easy to look up and compare results to references, without any tricky conversion calculations. A standard frequency also allows the manufacturer to get very good at making filters and monochrometers that only allow that wavelength through. Any switch would need some pretty good reasons that I just don't see.

I believe lead and tungsten are both used in the XRD apparatus, just not in the way the grandparent claims. A tungsten tip is used as the emission source because it has such a high melting point. And I think lead is used for shielding, because although it may not block cosmic rays (can anything do this?) it will block X-rays.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[mrmeval]

I'm all for using them as radiation shielding. I wanna see their eyes glow from Cherenkov radiation.

Re:What about radiation shielding?

[smithmc]

It is probably cheapper to correct the defects caused by uncharged radiation that it is to shield it.

Even if those defects are being caused in, say, human DNA?

Toxicity?

[saleenS281]

So... have they actually tested this on humans to verify it's non-toxic? That's great that we're not using lead, but if this is just as bad for humans when it hits our water supply, what exactly is the benefit? Swapping one (cheap) poison for another (expensive) one?

Re:Toxicity?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Toxicology can be full of (un)pleasant surprises; but the list of elements involved is promising. Bismuth is a widely accepted nontoxic substitute for lead in applications where similar mechanical properties are needed, and is a component of certain medicines. Iron is generally unproblematic. I'm not sure about Samarium, though our wikipedia overlords say "low to moderate toxicity". Since one of its isotopes has internal medical applications, there are probably some toxicological data out there.

We'll need to test the compound itself, to be sure; but it probably beats lead.

Re:Toxicity?

[bishiraver]

Isn't bismuth also used in pepto bismol?

Re:Toxicity?

[sillybilly]

As long as the product performs somewhere near as well as the old stuff, and it's patentable, then there is money to be made. We just have to find sufficient fault with the old stuff, and bad mouth it enough to start making money. Wikipedia says that as with the other lanthanides, samarium compounds are of low to moderate toxicity, although their toxicity has not been investigated in detail. An MSDS sheet where you can put toxicity N/A, no data available sounds better than one where you know it's toxic, because at least with an unknown there is a chance that it's not toxic. There is money to be made with the patent, and money saved by not having regulations to deal with. Regulations regulate know toxic materials, not unknowns.

Re:Toxicity?

[worthawholebean]

Pepto-Bismol is Bismuth salicylate if I remember correctly.

Re:Toxicity?

[hoytak]

Inferring a compound's behavior from the individual elements is error-prone. Carbon is great and nitrogen is great, but CN, well, not so much. On the other hand, this is more true with organic compounds (containing carbon).

Re:Toxicity?

[ppanon]

Yeah, cyclic aromatics also have a fairly high tendency to be unhealthy.

Re:Toxicity?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Certainly true, particularly with clever organic stuff. On the plus side, it can at least give you an idea of whether the compound can be rendered safe by incineration, decay, or being metabolized by the right organisms. Particularly with the interest in incineration or plasma pyrolysis for waste disposal, I'd consider a toxic compound made of harmless elements to be a win over a toxic compound made of toxic elements(and, in some circumstances, even a harmless compound made of toxic elements). In the end, we'll just have to feed a bunch of this stuff to bunnies and fuzzy puppies, I suppose.

Re:Toxicity?

[sdpuppy]

I'm not sure about Samarium

If you ingest Samarium, your TV gets all staticy and then your phone rings and someone on the other end says "7 days!"

..and then before you die, you see The Ring.

Need a car analogy to go with that? :-)

Re:Toxicity?

[Tubal-Cain]

Bismuth is a widely accepted nontoxic substitute for lead...

So? Clorine and Sodium are two very toxic supstances, but NaCl isn't. See also: Thinkgeek
Properties of compounds often bear very little relation to their constituent parts.

Re:Toxicity?

[Toonol]

Pepto-Bismol is Bismuth salicylate if I remember correctly.

I have to interrupt to say this exactly illustrates what a slashdot comment should be. It's like a glimpse of a platonic ideal.

Re:Toxicity?

[N1EY]

Did you know that the ARMY is using lead ammunition, again? The research has not been done on Tungsten. Everyone wanted them to switch to tungsten for practice ammunition as lead has been showing up in the water supply. The only thing is that tungsten levels are just as high was lead in some places after only ten years of approximate tungsten use versus 90 years of lead use. Sometimes we are better off with the original stuff. Why is Canada still mining Asbestos?

Re:Toxicity?

[Andy Dodd]

Yup, as the other poster said, bismuth salicylate. Kind of implied by your parent post in "is a component of certain medicines".

Re:Toxicity?

[Lumpy]

Problem is that the element it's self is not the problem it's what it can make when it reacts with others.

Flouride is mostly harmless and gives us a nice defense to the teeth, but when combined with Hydrogen and Silicon you get H2SiF6 which will eat through you, and the floor, and the glass it's contained in. Incredibly nasty stuff.

Re:Toxicity?

[icebrain]

I think you're mixing things up. Tungsten is far too expensive to be using for practice ammunition in small arms. But it's been suggested as a substitute for depleted uranium in armor-piercing rounds for tanks and aircraft due to toxicity concerns with DU.

Standard small arms ammunition consists of a lead core mostly or completely covered (jacketed softpoint and "ball" or full metal jacket, respectively) with a copper shell. The copper helps hold the bullet together and gives the rifling in the barrel something to grip, and the lead provides mass and terminal expansion effects.

Armor-piercing small arms ammunition will have a dense core (steel or tungsten) surrounded by lead and a jacket, which keeps the barrel from getting torn up by the harder material. I believe this is also standard for some Russian ammunition (which also often uses steel for the case in place of brass). Doing this might be cheaper than an all-lead bullet, but it will affect the ballistics of the round.

Re:Toxicity?

[Scannerman]

I think you're mixing things up. Tungsten is far too expensive to be using for practice ammunition in small arms. But it's been suggested as a substitute for depleted uranium in armor-piercing rounds for tanks and aircraft due to toxicity concerns with DU.

APDS rounds have been made out of Tungsten for a long time - at least 25 years to my personal knowledge, I believe a lot longer

Armor-piercing small arms ammunition will have a dense core (steel or tungsten) surrounded by lead and a jacket, which keeps the barrel from getting torn up by the harder material. .

Steel is not particularly dense, S.g. is around 8, compared to 9 for copper, 11 for lead or about 19 for tungsten or DU

Re:Toxicity?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not true. To produce, import, or sell any new chemical species (or promote a "significant new use" of an existing chemical) in the USA, you have to generate toxicity data. The Toxic Substances Control Act gives the EPA the responsibility of overseeing this regulation. Though the TSCA has several weaknesses, you can't just produce an MSDS with toxicity n/a - unless you have friends in the EPA.

Re:Toxicity?

[Arterion]

The stuff does look to be very corrosive, but that might be a little exaggerated:

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ipcsneng/neng1233.html

Sure, it would be corrosive to skin, most flooring (especially stone), and glassware. But the image you give is pouring the stuff into a glass, having it melt through the glass, your hand, and the floor, and whatever is below you. xD

But you are right about chemical reactions of relatively innocuous chemicals causing serious hazards. The most common example I can think of is bleach + ammonia.

Re:Toxicity?

[bishiraver]

Eh, he said isotopes. A bismuth compound isn't really an isotope... There's probably bismuth isotopes used in contrast tests, though. IANAD.

But...but...

[the_humeister]

...bismuth is radioactive!

Re:But...but...

[MiKM]

Bismuth isn't radioactive

Re:But...but...

[the_humeister]

Wow! Did you see that thing flying over your head?

Re:But...but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um. Unless your original post was some obscure reference to something, it doesn't actually qualify as even a bad joke. It's just...an incorrect statement.

Re:But...but...

[Anonymous Coward]

what, that thing?

Is it a competition. Is it thanksgiving. 10 trillion reasons to play!

Re:But...but...

[the_humeister]

From the same wikipedia article that was linked to (it's even in the first paragragh!):

It is generally considered to be the last naturally occurring stable, non-radioactive element on the periodic table, although it is actually slightly radioactive, with an extremely long half-life.

Re:But...but...

[MiKM]

My apologies, is that a reference I missed?

Re:But...but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "slightly" is a gross overstatement. The half-life of Bismuth is on the order of hundreds of billions of years (and Bismuth-209 has a half-life of 1.9*10^19 years).

Re:But...but...

[evanbd]

What? Yes, it is. Technically. But remember, this is /., so we're all being pedants. Bismuth is so minutely radioactive that it was predicted before it was measured. For any practical purpose, it's not radioactive, but if you want to get precise about it, it is. (Also, there's far more to worry about from the potassium in your body than any quantity of bismuth you could conceivably eat.)

Re:But...but...

[Abreu]

What about the potassium? [bites a banana]

Lead solder replacement

[Krishnoid]

I haven't picked up a soldering iron in a while, but I've heard that non-lead solder has a lot more structural problems than lead solder. Will this stuff have related problems?

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Majik Sheff]

As a technician, RoHS is the bane of my existence. It doesn't flow right, it doesn't wet right, and it doesn't cool right.

Because RoHS solder is not a true eutectic alloy it tends to separate when thermal conditions aren't precisely right. As a consequence, many manufacturers had huge runs of products that stayed soldered just long enough to get out the door and frequently out of warranty.

I hope someone comes up with a better substitute soon because I am sick and tired of cracked solder, cracked solder, and cracked solder.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[networkBoy]

Also as a tech, I simply re-solder any failed component with lead/tin.
RoHS be damned. Though I do work in a prototype environment so meh on the production side.
-nB

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Endo13]

Perfect example being the RROD.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

I frequently solder prototypes for my work, and I refuse to use lead-free solder. It is very difficult to work with, not so much because of structural problems, but because it doesn't melt easily. Because it takes a lot of heat to melt, I'm afraid of destroying my components, and it takes much longer to solder with. I also think it doesn't adhere to copper as well. With lead, you just heat the copper a bit, and the lead solder moves like a fluid where I need the solder.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Rorschach1]

Yep. I just had to rework by hand more boards than I'd like to think about. The increased temperature required to reflow the solder already had the contract manufacturer's over maxed out for the panel size I was using - with 63/37 Sn/Pb solder it would never have been a problem - and then a stencil problem caused a bunch of bridges. It would have been a simple matter to fix with lead-based solder, but no matter how much flux you slather on it, it still doesn't flow right.

So yes, there are RoHS-compliant solders out there, but people underestimate the impact of throwing away years of experience with established soldering processes. It takes a long time to get really good information on long-term reliability. The new processes are also using a lot more energy, with the increased carbon footprint and so forth that goes with it.

If someone could come up with a RoHS-compliant solder that flowed and wetted like 63/37, with roughly the same melting temperature, I'd be all over it, even if the cost was significantly higher.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to love an environmental measure that ensures a significantly higher failure rate in electronic devices, meaning more electronics to trash -- electronics containing materials much more hazardous than lead. Sheer genius.

People in first world countries have so little to worry about in terms of health issues that they strain to find bogeymen, and lead has become one of the things filling that role.

I had one couple fly up from Texas just to see my house in Seattle, make an offer on it, and later rescind the offer because the house was old enough that it existed when lead paint was sometimes used. There was no specific reason to believe the paint was lead-based, and much of the house was wall-papered. The mom was terrified of the possibility of lead and her email withdrawing the offer was filled with heartbreak because they really adored the place; they ended up getting a recent townhome in a much less desirable location. One twist: they knew from the beginning that the attic had loose-fill vermiculite that had a decent chance of containing asbestos, and they had no problems with that.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Quantos]

In auto restoration they will often use lead rod to complete the metal work. It would be nice to see a Human Friendly alternative that would provide the same results. Hell, it would be nice to find an alternative that would keep our repairmen alive a little longer too.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[rivetgeek]

only old school purists still lead bodywork. It's 99% bondo these days.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Quantos]

That's simply not true, there are far more than 1% of body workers exposing themselves to lead. True that the percentage is not high, and hopefully they are wearing masks. There are many things that bondo will NOT acheive(spelling?), one of them being staying power, it is nowhere near as reliable or longlasting(except on a fibre panel).

Re:Lead solder replacement

[rivetgeek]

They have lead free alloys for use now. The ONLY reason to use lead these days is to keep a classic car "original" with period body filler. Also, nobody gets lead poisoning from leaded body filler unless they are eating it. And no, it doesn't get nearly hot enough to vaporize.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Quantos]

Anytime you take a metal into a liquid state, you are vaporizing a portion of it, I am an Ironworker/Welder, and many people said the same thing about galv.
It has nothing to do with period autos, it has to do with the fact that metal adheres to metal better.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[servognome]

I haven't picked up a soldering iron in a while, but I've heard that non-lead solder has a lot more structural problems than lead solder. Will this stuff have related problems?

As an engineer working on lead-free solder development for electronics, the problems that can arise are specific to the application. The industry has developed a number of different alloys that perform under specific conditions. Instead of just choosing a tin-lead solder that works pretty much everywhere, developers need to understand the types of reliability stresses their product will see and choose the best alloy to meet those requirements. For example lead-free solders that work well in a thermal cycling environment tend to not perform as well under shock conditions. From an assembly side of things, a lot of the problems arise from using old SnPb equipment and materials for soldering joints using leadfree solders. Different reflow temperatures, wetting characteristics, and oxides, means that you just can't use the same old eutectic flux and soldering iron and expect the same quality of results.

Lead-free solders aren't necessarily problematic, they just require a little more understanding to properly use.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[rivetgeek]

Seriously dude. I'm a machinist and Ive welding mig, tig, and arc for 15 years. Melting point http://www.insc.anl.gov/matprop/lead/pbcp.pdf

Re:Lead solder replacement

[rivetgeek]

ok apparently slashdot hates the less than sign, it cut off half that post. Anyway, lead melts at 600 degrees and doesn't vaporize till over 2000 degrees. You are just flat out wrong man.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Gordonjcp]

That's simply not true, there are far more than 1% of body workers exposing themselves to lead
... and 100% of them are exposing themselves to the far more toxic compounds produced by catalytic converters. Your point is?

Re:Lead solder replacement

[trip11]

Actually he's not completely wrong. When you say an object is at a given tempature, you are refering to the average tempature of the whole object. Individual atoms can be moving faster/slower than the average so really there is a whole spectrum of tempatures (this is very well known for an ideal gas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxwellBoltzmann_distribution/ )

While the same formulas won't hold for a metal, the same ideas will be true. Another example. When you sweat, your skin is cooled by the fact the water is vaporizing (evaporating) off of your skin. But of course your skin is far from 100C, however some of the water will still vaporize.

I don't know the specifics for lead, but there will still be some fraction of the lead that will vaporize off at well below 2000 degrees. If that fraction is big or so small that it doesn't matter is another point all together.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[servognome]

As a technician, RoHS is the bane of my existence. It doesn't flow right, it doesn't wet right, and it doesn't cool right.
Because RoHS solder is not a true eutectic alloy it tends to separate when thermal conditions aren't precisely right. As a consequence, many manufacturers had huge runs of products that stayed soldered just long enough to get out the door and frequently out of warranty.

The problem is many companies think you just change the alloy to lead free, turn the ovens on a little hotter and everything is fine.
When I started work on lead free process development 8 years ago, it became quickly evident that lead free solders require much more than a process "tweak" to the old eutectic systems. Every aspect basically needs to be redeveloped - as you said lead free solder doesn't behave the same.

At the most basic level, instead of 1 tin-lead eutectic alloy, there are a series of different lead-free alloy replacements that you choose from depending on your application and reliability requirements. From there you need new fluxes(to deal with different oxides), equipment (improve accuracy because of less self-alignment and higher temps), and procedures (to make the changes work correctly), all specifically optimized to the alloy and application you are working on.

Lead-free isn't as easy as leaded solders, but if you've done your due diligence in developing the process correctly it really isn't that bad.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[rivetgeek]

and when you look up the vaporization temp of a substance that is the MINIMUM temperature that the substance will vaporize. PERIOD. EVEN ONE ATOM. If a single atom is heated/pressurized to vapor point then yes, you will have trace amount aerosoled.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Andy Dodd]

The article title is very misleading. The title claims that a good replacement for lead has been found, but then the summary says it is a replacement compound for one specific lead compound.

It doesn't seem to address the issue of lead-free solder, which would have been great for my company. We produce mission-critical components that have to endure very harsh environments - as others have said, not a good place for RoHS parts. As "classic" lead-containing parts get harder to find it would be nice if someone could identify a suitable lead-free replacement. Currently the situation is that the chance of lead in one of our products (aircraft avionics) poisoning someone is FAR less than the chance of a component failure due to lead-free techniques causing multiple deaths.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Andy Dodd]

"For example lead-free solders that work well in a thermal cycling environment tend to not perform as well under shock conditions."

What happens when you have both extensive thermal cycling AND vibration?

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Lumpy]

which makes automotive applications a PITA. Thermal cycling AND shock conditions. I find all the current solders to suck compared to my old standby. Even silver solder outperforms most of the new stuff in automotive uses.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[idontgno]

If you want a "less than" or "greater than" sign in your comment, and you're using the "HTML Formatted" setting (the default), you have to use a character-entity notation to avoid Slashcode mis-interpreting your "<" or ">" as HTML tagging.

To get "<", type "&lt;"
To get ">", type "&gt;"

There are a few others that I've found work:

To get "€", type "&euro;"
To get "¥", type "&yen;"
To get "£", type "&pound;"

Yeah, this is off-topic, but I hope it's helpful to someone.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[weiserfireman]

Maybe I am a little anal about these things, but the wording people use when trying to describe the lead problem and the capability of the solutions they propose to solve the problem?

Lead is an element. It is also the end product of radioactive decay, so over time the amount of lead in our environment increases and will continue to increase no matter what we do.

Yes, lead is a neurotoxin with many bad effects on the human body. So the problem isn't that there is lead in the environment, is that we need to control the amount of lead humans are exposed to.

We can't reduce the amount of lead, remember its an element, we can only concentrate it in locations where it is less likely to cause us harm.

But because it is a product of decay, it will always be in the soil around us. At some point, we have to let the science of toxicology take over and say we can live with this level. At this point, we just keep lowering and lowering the level. I have no toxicology background, but sometimes it feels like they are lowering the limits because the detection technology got better, not because there is new science to demonstrate that the old limit was dangerous and the new limit is safer.

So in Summary, Lead is a distribution problem. We can't remove it from the environment, we can only concentrate it in an attempt to control our exposure.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Grishnakh]

The whole thing is idiotic. There's a lot worse substances and compounds out there, that are far more poisonous to humans, but you don't see all this energy about them. Lead is perfectly safe as long as you don't eat it. Personally, I don't eat solder or electronics (or paint), so I think I'm safe. Of course, the environmentalists' complaint is that the lead leaches out of trashed electronics. That can be solved by having governments accept electronics for special processing and disposal, just like they do now with recyclables, and dangerous items. All the compact fluorescent light bulbs they're pushing on us now have mercury, and we aren't supposed to throw those in the trash, but there's no real place to take them, plus they break easily (that's the main reason I throw them away, not because they go bad), and when that happens, throwing them in the trash is the only option, regardless of the mercury contamination.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[servognome]

What happens when you have both extensive thermal cycling AND vibration?

Specialized alloys, processes and improved design for reliability.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

and when you look up the vaporization temp of a substance that is the MINIMUM temperature that the substance will vaporize. PERIOD. EVEN ONE ATOM. If a single atom is heated/pressurized to vapor point then yes, you will have trace amount aerosoled.

You're looking at vaporization in bulk, you can have vaporization into an environment through diffusive forces (vapor pressure)

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Winter]

We have a product with about 15 fairly expensive BGA's on it.
Before RoHS, we had little to no problems with the board. After we switched, we have a lot of problems with cracked solder joints/BGA balls under the BGA's, and they usually doesn't show up right away, but waits for a few thermal cycles.

The ironic thing is htat since we're making telecom equipment, we're excempt from using unleaded solder, but we cannot get the BGA's with anything except unleaded balls.

Re:Lead solder replacement

[Trogre]

That has been my experience too. After battling RoHS crap I'm going back to my massive roll of leaded solder. The way I see it, this initiative is actually *bad* for the environment as equipment fails more often, requiring more consumption of resources to replace them.

"RoHS - why settle for just one dry joint?"

Reality check...

[girlintraining]

Lead: Found in damn near every kind of mining ore. Very common.
Bismuth: 2x more abundant than gold. Not considered economical to mine for it; Usually had as a byproduct.

So sure, if you want your production costs to go up up and away, killing your competitive edge, use the eco-friendly BiFeO3. Everyone else, keep pushing recycling and consumer awareness. -_- Oh -- and the icing on the cake? Guess who produces most of the world's bismuth? China, the country best known for producing lead-laden products of much doom.

Re:Reality check...

[svnt]

Lead: Found in damn near every kind of mining ore. Very common.

The difference is that if my toddler becomes developmentally disabled from licking ore, there is no manufacturer to sue.

Well, I could try, but I've heard he's got a Hell of a legal team.

Re:Reality check...

[girlintraining]

If your toddler is licking mining ore I think your first court date will be with child protection services, not the manufacturer.

Re:Reality check...

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't know anything about toddlers. "mining ore" is a euphamism for "rocks". Toddlers eat rocks, and damn near everything else that's less then 4 feet above the surface. The only things they don't eat are those which resemble vegetables.

Re:Reality check...

[Red Flayer]

Oh -- and the icing on the cake? Guess who produces most of the world's bismuth? China, the country best known for producing lead-laden products of much doom.

And why does China produce the most Bismuth?

Because China produces the most lead from ore (the US refines more lead, but it's largely from scrap, not from ore)... I think China refines about 3x more lead from ore than the US.

On the plus side, bismuth production facilities are opening in Canada and other countries, on account of increased demand for bismuth as a lead substitute -- particularly in ammunition, but also in electronics and elsewhere.

At any rate, if we see hugely increased demand for bismuth, and the accompanying increase in production, we'll also see increased production of lead, since it would become a valuable byproduct of bismuth production :). Not to mention tin, zinc, etc.

Re:Reality check...

[girlintraining]

The demand has already gone up. Ten years ago it was about $2 per pound. Now it's about $17 and rising fast. Production can't increase that fast in just a few years... We're nowhere near peak price on this yet; It could still rise many-fold more yet if demand continues to completely outstrip supply as it has been doing for the past decade.

Re:Reality check...

[Firethorn]

Not to mention that as long as you keep it out of piping and digestive tracts, your levels aren't going to go up enough to matter.

Lead's also so easy to recycle people do it in their own garages.

Re:Reality check...

[cheater512]

As opposed to licking circuit boards, which are probably live?

The problem with lead in electronics wasnt due to immediate risks, the problem was when the products got thrown out.

Re:Reality check...

[Quantos]

What do you think you breath in when you overheat it?

Re:Reality check...

[PDX]

What about the electrical shorts caused by aluminum whiskers? Bob Crigley had an article about that last year.

Re:Reality check...

[Mashiki]

What do you think you breath in when you overheat it?

Little to no worry. They just finished doing their update on blood testing up here in Canada with lead toxicity. Since we stopped using lead in say, paint, gasoline and such. 1% of the population now has >10 micrograms per decilitre, the majority have under 1.37 micrograms per decilitre.

The real issues from lead and such come from combustion, paint or piping. In other words, things you come in contact with day-to-day. Trace amounts aren't going to do you much damage.

Re:Reality check...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than that. Bismuth is difficult to recycle, and it hinders the recyclability of other metals, e.g., copper, so it increases the amount of mining and energy needed to build new electronics. Lead is not a problem in landfills, because it doesn't readily leach into water supplies (ask a public health physician who is concerned with lead poisoning if he or she is worried about lead in the ground), and it doesn't interfere with recycling other metals. So bismuth substitutes for lead in solder are probably bad for the environment as well as bad for electronics.

Re:Reality check...

[Firethorn]

Good point. I forgot about leaded gasoline.

Point is, people survived, more or less fine, in environments with literally thousands of times the levels of lead we're exposed to today because we've gotten it out of the dangerous products like gas, water pipes*, and paint.

I honestly figure we're going to see a spike in various illnesses as the baby boomers age due to their exposure to dangerous chemicals; often thousands that of what we're worrying about today.

By the same token, that doesn't mean that I don't think that we should take precautions, especially in factories and such. It wasn't people in buildings laced with asbestos getting cancer; it was the workers installing and otherwise manipulating it day in and day out that got the vast majority of the cancers.

*Though some east coast cities apparently are still using some old lead pipes, deciding it's 'too expensive' to replace them

Re:Reality check...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the vein of pushing recycling and consumer awareness, you should mention the main reason that products from China might have lead in them is that is where our lead-laden electronics can be sent and dismanteled in truely horrible working conditions if not recycled properly.

Re:Reality check...

[idontgno]

My toddlers don't eat rocks. They throw them. I have the bruises to prove it.

As to vegetables, the boy asks for sliced cucumbers with soy sauce (but will eat them without), and the girl's favorite dinner is a big green salad.

I think they're mutants, but there are counterexamples.

Re:Reality check...

[Hoi Polloi]

What about Samarium? That can't be exactly cheap. I always wonder about the economic viability of electronics that require rare earth metals like some of the high efficiency solar cells designs that have come out.

Re:Reality check...

[Abreu]

I have LazyTown to thank for my kids' strange demands of fruits and vegetables... Can't they just eat candy and drink soda all day like we did when we were kids?

Darn Icelandic athlete with a pencil moustache and his ability to make mutants out of my kids!

Re:Reality check...

[Grishnakh]

This is why we need to just let things take their natural course, instead of worrying so much about lead. Your kids will grow up to be very intelligent, and the OP's rock-eating kids will get low-level lead poisoning, grow up to have IQs of about 80, and be janitors. We're going to continue to need janitors for the foreseeable future, so there's nothing wrong with this.

Only one way to get the...

[Anonymous Coward]

...lead out, and that's with a double shot of Led Zeppelin, that is! CRANK IT UP, DOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Way Too Late

[svnt]

They may pick up some stragglers that are totally dependent on PZT, but in European consumer electronics, components containing significant PZT have been practically useless since 2006. Europe is not what I would call a small market - as a result, components everywhere are designed to meet the same requirements, meaning these components have suffered from declining demand and/or been removed from company plans.

"Products that use the new compound could hit the market in about five years, according to the university, after large-scale testing takes place, industry awareness and demand happens, and a method for mass production is created."

Given that RoHS has already had a staggering impact on the electronics industry, I don't see "maybe 2013, if people figure out that they want this material, and if we can actually mass-produce it" as too reassuring. I'm sure not designing anything in the hopes that a PZT replacement will hit the market sometime next decade.

Maybe if you're in ultrasonics this is big news?

More reliable than tin?

[kimvette]

While it's good that they're getting lead out of toys, etc. what about computers, televisions, and other devices/appliances which are generally not regarded as disposable? Is this new solder going to be more reliable than tin, which is notorious for whisker and dendrite formation, which wreaks havoc with reliability?

Given that you're on /. I'd assume that you know what tin whiskers and dendrites are, but in case you're not here is a refresher:

http://www.siliconfareast.com/whiskers.htm

You can see where this is a problem. And, although it's been discovered that matte tin surfaces and good quality control can reduce the likelihood of whisker formation, what about repairs and installation/reinstallation of components on a mainboard? Replacing integral components (capacitors, sockets, etc.) require high heat, which is sufficient to change the crystalline structure and introduce new stress points for whiskers to "grow," and flexing of the main board from installation of peripherals, connecting devices to sockets, and simple heat/cold cycling will be enough to introduce stress points even in properly-formed, properly-plated components, creating points where whisker formation is more likely.

Yes, protect the environment, but since more and more electronics are being recycled rather than being dumped in landfills, isn't lead in electronics a non-issue anyhow? I mean, in most localities you're not supposed to chuck monitors and devices containing printed circuit boards in the trash.

Re:More reliable than tin?

[Eskarel]

This isn't for soldering, they've already found a replacement(albeit not a very good one) for lead based solder.

This is about certain kinds of electrical components which needed to be made out of PZT.

Re:More reliable than tin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your last sentence is where the problem lies. The end consumer is expected to act in a responsible manner in disposal. The local municipality is supposed to have a means to collect and make this convenient to the consumer. The company contracted by the municipality to recycle this material responsibly is supposed to follow it's mandate.

However the reality is when dealing with a well known toxin such as lead which is present in so many products all of the above are failure points.

And too often for whatever reasons some or all of the persons or organizations tasked with this responsibility fail.

A week or two ago there was a "60 minutes" special on some province in China which is the most toxic place on this planet. Why you ask? That's right the company which collected the electronic waste from citizens doing the right thing in a collection drive transported the waste in TONS from the good ole USA back to China where most of it is made to be "recycled". Yes this is illegal the laws are already on the books. Enforcement is what is lacking.

By recycled I mean dirt poor peasant folks barely scraping by literally melting parts off circuit boards over what looked like a scrap wood stove under an exposed tin shack.

Re:More reliable than tin?

[thinkobscure]

The end consumer is expected to act in a responsible manner in disposal. The local municipality is supposed to have a means to collect and make this convenient to the consumer. The company contracted by the municipality to recycle this material responsibly is supposed to follow it's mandate.

However the reality is when dealing with a well known toxin such as lead which is present in so many products all of the above are failure points.

And too often for whatever reasons some or all of the persons or organizations tasked with this responsibility fail.

I completely agree with Anonymous Coward on this point. There are just far to many points of falure in the recycling process which most people are not aware of, hell most people arent aware of how toxic the components in their PC's are.

Over the spring, during a river cleanup, I picked a PC out of a small trash heap in a public park(among the other things found was a small dishwasher). I'm living in what I thought was a fairly clean city (Milwaukee, WI). Then about month ago I picked up a trashed audio amp off the street and 2 computers in my neighbors trash bin.

I attached a link to the CBS 60-Minutes artical with video of the actual e-wasteland for easy reference.

Following The Trail Of Toxic E-Waste

Re:More reliable than tin?

[Anonymous Coward]

how about NASA
http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/background/index.htm

Re:More reliable than tin?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a new solder. It is a new piezoelectric material.

Lead, meaning 1

[PearsSoap]

It's great to see someone taking a lead on finding an alternative to lead. The chemical seems quite complicated, I wonder where they got a lead to that from. Where will it lead? They might even be able to make home entertainment leads out of it. They could start the lead-up soon.

You don't send satelites to a landfill

[EmbeddedJanitor]

You send them to space.... and if they do crash you make sure to crash it outside of California so that you don't get the eco-Nazis on your case.

Re:You don't send satelites to a landfill

[Miseph]

Yeah, you dump it in the ocean, everybody knows that's just nature's super-landfill!

Note the product list...

[Anonymous Coward]

The material, bismuth samarium ferrite (BSFO),

Hmmm. "Lead" vs. Bizmasgonnabegoodumite. Sound like the new stuff might cost more...

It can be used in products such as biomedical imaging devices and inkjet printers,

Ah. So it's for the Colbert "Platinum" crowd, because we all know how cheap medical imaging devices are, much less "copy-right protected" disposable ink jet cartridges are...

Maybe we can get some lead free Cowboy Neal out of it too...

$130 / 100g

[epine]

A quick search came up with one site listing the cost of Samarium as $130 per 100g. I'm sure that's cost effective for medical imaging equipment. And I had never realized this, but our local landfill is positively brimming with discarded medical scanning equipment. I might try to scavenge some of this, but all the discarded MRI machines are clumped together by some unseen force.

Re:$130 / 100g

[Chris Pimlott]

And I had never realized this, but our local landfill is positively brimming with discarded medical scanning equipment. I might try to scavenge some of this, but all the discarded MRI machines are clumped together by some unseen force.

Might want to reconsider that.

Re:$130 / 100g

[psydeshow]

Fascinating story. Thanks for posting that.

No solder replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't seem to be replacing lead in a solder. Only in a funny piezoelectric compound. What percentage of lead in electronics it means is open.

this is old news

[Digitus1337]

My local radio-station gets the Led out all of the time!

Misleading title...

[jamiek]

FTFA, The researchers have found a replacement for Lead zirconate titanate not LEAD. PZT is a piezoelectric material that contains lead and is used to make actuators and transducers in microelectronics industry. The article itself is pretty poor describing piezoelectric materials as a "switch", so perhaps it is not the fault of the readers for thinking this was a replacement for lead based solders.

Why?

[Detritus]

I've never seen a justification for the huge amount of money that's been spent on removing lead from electronics. Yes, the stuff can be toxic if ingested in sufficient quantities. No, it isn't going to leap out of your old TV set and perform unnatural acts on your dog. Tin-lead solder has been used for many decades. It's cheap and it works. I can understand why lead was removed from paint and gasoline. It was creating real problems when used in those products. Why, other than catering to the irrational and unfounded fears of the public, are we removing it from electronics?

Re:Why?

[BlueStrat]

Why, other than catering to the irrational and unfounded fears of the public, are we removing it from electronics?

Isn't that pretty much a politicians' job description these days?

The environmental lobbies have already pushed through enough regulations to put many U.S. industries out of business and left consumers with no choice but to purchase much more shoddy products manufactured with far less environmental controls from foreign sources. But, I guess that's okay. It's over there, right? It's not like pollution in a foreign country affects us.

Oh, wait..

Vacuum tubes come to mind as a good example. I currently design, build, and service vacuum tube musical instrument amplifiers. The tubes being made in China, Russia, and other countries in eastern Europe are crappy-sounding, unreliable, and vary wildly in specs from production-run to production-run, and even within a single run. It's so bad that old-production tubes that have sat in some dusty warehouse for 2 or 3 decades or more sell for unbelievably-high prices.

USD$400 for a pair of RCA 6L6's!?!? That's *if* you can find them somewhere?

http://www.kcanostubes.com/products/106/NOS-RCA-6L6GC-Blackplate-Matched-Pairs.htm

That's just nuts! The *whole amplifier* these things came in didn't cost that much new at the time!

I'm also going to keep on using regular 60/40 rosin-core solder in my builds and repairs until and unless they develop a true replacement that doesn't have the 'tin whisker' and other problems associated with current RoHS-compliant solders. If they outlaw it, I guess I'll be an outlaw.

I can see a future jailhouse conversation:

"What did they get ya for man?"

"Possession and distribution."

"Meth? Crack? Heroin?"

"Nah, 60/40 solder."

"Stay away from me, man!"

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because not all electronics are disposed of properly. And once it's in the landfill or other improper place, the lead can leach into the groundwater and cause a lot of problems in a lot of species, not just humans.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is that wasteful humans throw out lots of electronic gear with lead in it, which gets buried somewhere. Then the electronic components break down over time and the lead seeps into the ground water. I think the general fear is that this contaminated ground water will become drinking water and give people lead poisoning.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, other than catering to the irrational and unfounded fears of the public, are we removing it from electronics?

Because we are living in democratic countries, where irrational and unfounded fears of the public are the primary political force.

Re:Why?

[dunkelfalke]

sorry dude, you are dead wrong there, i tell you that as a fellow guitarist.
because ussr has used tube electronics for much longer than the first world countries, the actual soviet tubes were of a much better quality and newer ones were of a much more modern design (smaller but with the same performance).

what you mean is that modern russian copies of western tubes suck, but it is a whole different story.

if you can find some genuine soviet tubes, try to design an amp with them.
for example try 6n1p or 6n2p for preamp tubes. they have comparable specs to the 12ax7 but with a different cathode design, better sound, and 12 db less noise. be aware though, that the both of them need 6.3 volt for heating instead of 12.6 of 12ax7.

or try the sub-miniature tubes like the 1j17b, 1j18b and 1p24b. good sound and less microphonics because of the rigid design.

you'll have to design new circuits especially for them, though.

Re:Why?

[Gordonjcp]

Vacuum tubes come to mind as a good example. I currently design, build, and service vacuum tube musical instrument amplifiers. The tubes being made in China, Russia, and other countries in eastern Europe are crappy-sounding, unreliable, and vary wildly in specs from production-run to production-run, and even within a single run

Really? Because I've found the Eastern European ones to be pretty good. In particular, the Svetlana 6146Bs don't need any particular matching - any two pulled out of the box will be about as close as you'd get matching by hand.

Re:Why?

[BlueStrat]

sorry dude, you are dead wrong there, i tell you that as a fellow guitarist.
because ussr has used tube electronics for much longer than the first world countries, the actual soviet tubes were of a much better quality and newer ones were of a much more modern design (smaller but with the same performance).

what you mean is that modern russian copies of western tubes suck, but it is a whole different story.

if you can find some genuine soviet tubes, try to design an amp with them.
for example try 6n1p or 6n2p for preamp tubes. they have comparable specs to the 12ax7 but with a different cathode design, better sound, and 12 db less noise. be aware though, that the both of them need 6.3 volt for heating instead of 12.6 of 12ax7.

or try the sub-miniature tubes like the 1j17b, 1j18b and 1p24b. good sound and less microphonics because of the rigid design.

you'll have to design new circuits especially for them, though.

First, let me say nice to hear from another musician/guitarist, especially another with an electronics background. :)

I'm actually familiar and have experimented with 6N1P's and other purely-Russian tubes. They are *different*, but I wouldn't say *better* designs than the original western/US tube counterparts from the '50's and '60's IMO, as I'm over 50 and have been doing electronic work for over 30 years and thus have first-hand experience with the original articles.

As to designing an amplifier for sale here in the west currently using original Russian-design tubes, it's simply not practical even if I agreed they are better tubes as the musicians that buy and play through my amps are generally just average working local and regional musicians that need to be able to walk into a local music store or amp shop in whatever random US town they find themselves in and be able to buy replacement tubes if they go bad. They're also not an option for traditional major-manufacturers' recent-production or vintage amp service and repair for obvious reasons.

However, none of this addresses my original posts' main point, which was that environmental regulations made it impossible for US companies to continue manufacturing tubes in the USA, and as a consequence much of the knowledge and skills required to produce them with their former quality and consistency has been lost, possibly forever, leaving an entire swath of the consumer electronics industry to operate with substandard replacements.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Why?

[BlueStrat]

Vacuum tubes come to mind as a good example. I currently design, build, and service vacuum tube musical instrument amplifiers. The tubes being made in China, Russia, and other countries in eastern Europe are crappy-sounding, unreliable, and vary wildly in specs from production-run to production-run, and even within a single run

Really? Because I've found the Eastern European ones to be pretty good. In particular, the Svetlana 6146Bs don't need any particular matching - any two pulled out of the box will be about as close as you'd get matching by hand.

I will say that the 'Winged-C'/SED tubes (not to be confused with current 'Svetlana'-branded tubes from New Sensor made in the Reflektor factory) from the St. Petersburg factory are some of the best current-production western-design tubes. I would still prefer original US 6146's, 6550's, 6CA7's, 6L6's, etc if they were still being produced to their former standards. JJ's are generally also pretty good as current-production tubes go, as are TAD's.

Still, many things like service life of most current-production tubes are a shadow of the original US-made tubes. Current-production power tubes in particular, like 6L6's and EL84/6BQ5's don't last anywhere near as long. I recently acquired an old Stromberg-Carlson amplifier that had RCA and GE tubes in it that were still working great after steady service as a churches' PA amplifier since the '60's. I simply replaced the old filter caps and a few of the carbon-comp resistors and coupling caps that had either drifted in value or become noisy and use the amp for recording and an occasional small gig locally with the same tubes. Most current-production 6L6's, EL84's, etc will last on average maybe a year (about 450 hours or so) under regular normal use then need to be replaced. Compare that with 10,000 hours.

Cheers!

Strat

No, it replaces lead zirconate titanate

[dtmos]

The researchers haven't come up with "a material to replace lead." They've come up with a material to replace lead zirconate titanate, a.k.a. PZT, a piezoelectric and ferroelectric material with many uses in electronics. Because it has an extremely large piezoelectric constant (meaning that it produces a large voltage under little mechanical stress) and is cheap to produce, it is the ceramic frequently used in transducers, sensors, and resonators. The thing on your motherboard that beeps on boot is very likely made of PZT.

PZT is not, repeat not, used in solder. Wikipedia is one of your many friends.

Finding a ceramic with similar properties, but without the lead, has been a difficult problem for materials scientists, and the UM researchers say they have finally come up with a viable candidate.

Re:No, it replaces lead zirconate titanate

[infalliable]

This was really confusing from the article/title. They weren't very clear that this is a piezoelectric material to replace PZT (not lead per se).

I hope this goes somewhere. Wuttig is a cool guy.

The question is,

[lahvak]

how did the bismuth samarium ferrite get to the university's A. James Clark School of Engineering?

"Leadless" Lead Solder

[myspace-cn]

"leadless" Lead Solder.

I can barely wait. Wait. I will have to wait.

America is about to get a rude awakening. All this green shit. It's not shit, but it's going to have to end for awhile. Didn't you get the memo? All the money from the Treasury has been stolen. Barring some second industrial revolution, we are screwed.

What worries me is like in the other thread on Slashdot where the "potential new electronics engineer" doesn't know what kind of books to read for Analog. (I guess he was a student, who fucking knows, I wouldn't hire him to dump my empty circuit cards.)

This explains the medical imaging

[calidoscope]

The summary kind of implied that the material would be used to replace lead-tin solder - but with the ferrite it would not be something you want in the bore of an MRI machine.

Thanks for the clarification.

What are RoHS companies using now?

[urbanriot]

I've noticed a great deal of my computer components, such as Intel motherboards, as of the last couple years have been listing that they're "RoHS" compliant and "Lead Free." If that's the case, what have they been using?

Re:What are RoHS companies using now?

[TimSSG]

The people making medical devices are using Lead; RoHS has exceptions where the replacements of Lead would cause lives to be lost. I think aircraft has exceptions also. The links says other exceptions exist. Tim S http://www.pb-free.info/rohsexemptions.htm

Does it work?

[p51d007]

What bothers me about all of this "get the lead out" BS is that if a substitute is used, will it perform as well as what it replaced? Look at all the good banning R12 did. R134A does not work as well, plus, 20 years after banning it because "it harms the ozone", now we find out, OOPS, my bad...R12 isn't that bad after all. Tell that to the dead crew of the Columbia Space Shuttle. The foam on the external tank was built, thanks to the enviro-nazis WITHOUT any Freon, and it blew off in chunks, ultimately dooming the shuttle. If the lead is taken out of electronics, how long until a "mission critical" sensor, actuator or other device fails, just to make a bunch of 60's hippies feel better? If the replacement works as well or better than the lead version, fine, but, if it doesn't then leave it alone. I've been in the electronics business for almost 40 years, and I can tell you from personal experience, that "lead free solder" (usually "silver solder") does NOT work as well as the lead/tin alloy that was used for over a hundred years.

Bismuth? Instead of Lead? Wow ...

[gordguide]

What is this, 2008?
You know, I might be a little too harsh here.
Who knows, maybe this was not obvious to these guys.
Or maybe it was, but took a really long time to test it all out.
But, as someone who is familiar with Bird Hunting, I can tell you that banning of lead in Bird Shot (shotgun shells) began right about the time the first Apple Computer (no, not the Apple ][ ) arrived.
The US banned it for bird hunting in 1991. Today, it's more-or-less banned everywhere on Earth where they make any attempt at all to regulate hunting.

Ammunition manufacturers offered various alloys in it's place, but by far the best substitute has pretty much always been Bismuth. A little grumbling about the extra cost pretty much sums up the biggest objection. Cheaper alternatives exist (alloys, typically), but every single one of them is not as good at mimicking Lead without the toxicity as Bismuth. And you can buy Bismuth or Bismuth alloy shotgun shells all over the world today.

Wasn't this a fairly obvious place to look; a fairly obvious material to test? Why did it take so long?

Re:Bismuth? Instead of Lead? Wow ...

[Anonymous Coward]

SO...

Are the bags and bags of lead shot i have in storage worth something now?

From bbb to 9. Got tons of it. And don't do much reloading anymore.

Re:Bismuth? Instead of Lead? Wow ...

[Grishnakh]

No, you can buy lead shotgun shells for next-to-nothing at Wal-Mart. The law is you can't use it for hunting birds (and you'd be smart not to, if you intend to eat the bird), but it's much more economical for target shooting. Only an idiot would shoot clay pigeons with non-lead shot. Lead shot in 00 size is also the best for home defense. Homeowners generally aren't concerned about home invaders getting lead poisoning.

Obligatory plug for my alma mater

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Maryland grad, it's nice to see results out of the engineering department. Ran into a lot of very friendly profs there in my time.

Duh.....

[IHC Navistar]

".....could keep lead out of landfills and the ecosystem, they say."

-Because everybody knows lead isn't from the environment.

Re:Duh.....

[smoker2]

".....could keep lead out of landfills and the ecosystem, they say."

-Because everybody knows lead isn't from the environment.

Yeah like coal and oil aren't from the environment either, oh wait, they are found deep underground below the water we drink, and definitely not in the air we we breathe. But now we are into the area of the ecosystem, you know, the area where we all live. If dumping lead into a landfill caused it to return to it's natural state (ore) then it would be fine, but that doesn't happen does it.
Plastic is a natural product by those terms, it comes from oil. But we have to process the oil to make plastic, and burying it in the ground doesn't make it turn back into oil and go back down a few km underground.

Re:Duh.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Right ON !
All this lead came from the earth.
The whole lead free program is bad for electronic reliability. (Medical and defense devices are exempt)
I have looked, has anyone seen a case where discarded electronics has actually contaminated someone's ground water?
Or is this merely a theoretical possibility.

Re:Duh.....

[Shatrat]

Give it a few hundred million years.

Re:Duh.....

[joshtheitguy]

I have looked, has anyone seen a case where discarded electronics has actually contaminated someone's ground water?

Apparently anyone in California can prove that it did and not only contaminated the water but caused cancer too!

because it winds up landfills

[circletimessquare]

it pollutes the environment

and frankly, i think we need a replacement for lead shot too. that doesn't go away either when you shoot it into the woods. of course, its used because its heavy. i don't know, bismuth shot?

go ahead, lecture me on relative harm and ppm. i just don't want lead in my environs. am i being irrational? well, the question is: is the 0.000001% increase in bad health effects worth the trade off? in my mind, rednecks with shotguns running around the woods is not worth anything to me to be worth any trade off. and if they find a suitably priced alternate to any lead in electronics, again, the trade off makes anything lead based simply not worth it

its a healthy instinct to purge every single one of our industrial and commercial uses for a poisonous element or compound. why isn't that a noble goal in your mind? by the end of this century, i think all industrial and commercial processes will be retooled to include no poisonous elements or compounds. and this just makes plain common sense. the stuff accumulates. i don't care how minor the accumulation is. any accumulation, no matter how small, represents a goalpost for society to surmount

Re:because it winds up landfills

[Anonymous Coward]

"i think we need a replacement for lead shot too. that doesn't go away either when you shoot it into the woods."

The military seems to have chosen tungsten for this role. Of course, it isn't exactly suitable to hunting (military weapons are designed to wound, not kill; ties up people to take care of the injured person) which isn't what you'd want while hunting (wounded animals are a pain to catch). Lead is heavy and soft, so it gives you good heft for ballistics but doesn't just punch through the target with a small wound like the harder/more rigid materials do. Don't expect lead to be replaced in hunting ammo any time soon.

Re:because it winds up landfills

[Grishnakh]

They already have copper shot for shooting birds, which makes a lot more sense to me than using lead. But for rifle rounds, copper-jacketed lead is probably a good option, since you can get the same ballistic performance without as much lead contamination.

As for using military rounds on animals, that's just cruel. A good hunter aims to kill the prey with a single, well-placed shot which drops the animal immediately. Not only is it easier since you don't have to follow a blood trail, it's much more humane for the animal.

Re:because it winds up landfills

[Scannerman]

it pollutes the environment

and frankly, i think we need a replacement for lead shot too. that doesn't go away either when you shoot it into the woods. of course, its used because its heavy.

A long long time ago

I was involved in making an electromagnetic sorting device to check the load in shotgun shells around 15 years ago, as I recall Lead = Bad, Steel or Bismuth = good.

Wrong!

[tomatensaft]

It's nature's super oceanfill!

how do you keep an element out of the environment?

[jonadab]

> if implemented commercially could keep lead out of landfills and the ecosystem

Okay, I can sort of see how using less lead in products would keep it out of landfills. That makes sense. But I'm a bit confused on the subject of keeping lead out of the environment. Where is the lead coming from that they're talking about *not* putting in products? Are manufacturers currently transmuting gold into lead or something, and I just don't know about it? Because I was under the impression that it came, ultimately, *from* the environment, in which case the total amount of lead in the world is not changing. It's just a question of exactly where it's located: in ores, in the stuff on the store shelves, in the stuff in homes and businesses, in the landfill, those are all just locations. It's still the same amount of lead.

Talking of keeping stuff out of the environment makes sense if the stuff in question is man-made, like plastics. But lead is an element. You might as well talk about keeping iron out of the environment, or nitrogen for that matter. It doesn't make sense.

Electronics vs. hunting

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of lead used in electronics and might end up contaminating the environment is negligible compared to the biggest source of lead outdoors. Unless we stop using lead in bullets to go hunting using expensive alternatives with problems like tin whiskers this is a half baked idea.

Keeping lead out of the ecosystem?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you think it came from in the first place?1?

Half-life Doesn't Matter Here, It IS Radioactive

[Iskender]

The word "slightly" is a gross overstatement. The half-life of Bismuth is on the order of hundreds of billions of years (and Bismuth-209 has a half-life of 1.9*10^19 years).

Still not enough for the absolute of "not radioactive". Meaning grandparent was completely right, and MiKM linking the Wikipedia article as proof of it being a stable element is proof of low reading comprehension, not to mention that it shows a lack of appreciating the joke he/she replied to.

Re:how do you keep an element out of the environme

[sjs132]

... a potential environmental hazard....

Likewise, there is an assumed argument being made that the hazard for the environment doesn't happen until after humans have distrubed the lead from it's natural environmentally stored location.

Quick, The sky is falling... or so I've been told.

5 words.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tin Whiskers.

Avionics.

Oh shit.

Everyone will love it, but then...

[HikingStick]

In 10, 20, 30 years, or more, someone will discover that this stuff is really bad for us, too. There will be news specials on families who saw high incidence of cancer, birth defects, or who knows what. They'll vouch that it causes autism and Mad Cow Disease. They'll even suggest that we should not be putting tons of this crap into our landfills.

All new technology looks marvelous today. Hey, once upon a time lead solder was a miracle material for the canning industry! Time brings hindsight, and that's when we start to realize that we still understand far too little about how much we are affected by things in our enviornment.

Wait a Minute

[Nom du Keyboard]

...could keep lead out of landfills and the ecosystem.

Wait moment. Isn't lead already in the ecosystem? Don't we dig it out of the ground because it's already there in the ground?

Re:Wait a Minute

[5KVGhost]

Don't we dig it out of the ground because it's already there in the ground?

Even worse, lead could be lurking underground almost anywhere. There's chance that there's toxic, brain-damaging lead in the ground right below your house. Maybe even under your child's playground.

There's only one way to make sure that our children are safe. I propose that we organize an industry to remove as much lead from the ground as possible. We can then mix the lead with other metals, and safely sequester the resulting mixture inside plastic and metal boxes where it can't reach out and victimize our innocent little ones. Maybe we can even run electrical charges through boxes to deter anyone from attempting to open the containers and touch the dangerous lead inside.

It's a bold plan, I know. But aren't our kids worth it?

Article is misguiding spin

[Sir Holo]

PZT is an extremely stable compound, and is not a significant environmental risk. It's an oxide, and it doesn't hydrate, so it's about like any other mineral in the ground. Structurally, the lead is locked up in a cage of TiO6 and ZrO6 polyhedra. It doesn't melt until >2000 degrees F. The lead in it isn't going anywhere.

Lead in paint? Bad - kids eat it.
Leas in solder? Bad - leaches in acidic soil.
Lead in PZT? Fine - it will stay there forever.

Re:Article is misguiding spin

[HexaByte]

Lead in paint? Bad - kids eat it.

My Dad grew up in a time where all paints contained lead.

He always claimed that it wasn't eating paint chips that causes retardation, rather, retarded kids tended to eat paint chips!

Wow

[Nicopa]

I misread this as "Researchers getting laid..."

Is lead in solder really bad?

[xtronics]

From what I understand the lead leaching out of landfills is from the broken lead containing glass of CRT tubes not from solder.

Now this is what happens. Lead ore in the form of oxides in the ground is toxic. It gets smelted down to metallic lead which is less toxic. Then alloyed with Tin and even less toxic. Then used as solder and put back in the ground.

On the other hand, the no-lead substitutes are less reliable and cause electronics to have shorter life-spans and thus fill up land-fills. The no lead devices also are finding their way into life critical electronics (or used in a life critical way (think cell phone)) and cause more people to die.

Is this really progress?

Batteries are the real lead culprit

[smartalix]

(...after coal plants.)

Can this stuff replace the lead in batteries? One thrown-away car battery has more lead than a thousand ICs.