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3D Printers Shown To Emit Potentially Harmful Nanosized Particles
An anonymous reader writes "A new study by researchers in the Built Environment Research Group at the Illinois Institute of Technology shows that commercially available desktop 3D printers can have substantial emissions of potentially harmful nanosized particles in indoor air. Many desktop 3D printers rely on a process where a thermoplastic feedstock is heated, extruded through a small nozzle, and deposited onto a surface to build 3D objects. Similar processes have been shown to have significant aerosol emissions in other studies using a range of plastic feedstocks, but mostly in industrial environments. In this study, researchers measured ultrafine particle concentrations resulting from a popular commercially available desktop 3D printer using two different plastic feedstocks inside an office. Ultrafine particles (or UFPs) are small, nanosized particles less than 100 nanometers in diameter. Inhalation of UFPs may be important from a health perspective because they deposit efficiently in the lung and can even translocate to the brain. Estimates of emission rates of total UFPs in this study were high, ranging from about 20 billion particles per minute for a 3D printer utilizing a lower temperature polylactic acid (PLA) feedstock to about 200 billion particles per minute for the same type of 3D printer utilizing a higher temperature acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) feedstock. The emission rates were similar to those measured in previous studies of several other devices and indoor activities, including cooking on a gas or electric stove, burning scented candles, operating laser printers, or even burning a cigarette."
The emission rates were similar to those measured in previous studies of several other devices and indoor activities, including cooking on a gas or electric stove, burning scented candles, operating laser printers, or even burning a cigarette.
When multiple options are available to mitigate the problem, then the most often used should be eliminated.
Hear you all, stop cooking! You're potentially killing yourself from nano-particle emissions. Stop cooking, now, please.
My guess is that we're going to find nanoparticles a VERY common part of our environment, and that just about any process that grinds or sprays is going to generate nanoparticles.
Fortunately, considering that bacteria and viruses are ALSO nanoparticles, our bodies have evolved amazing defenses against them.
-Styopa
Detecting the rate of generated nanoparticles when burning scented candles? Wait, I hear the investment coming, we are going to get rich!!!
"Cooking on gas or electric stoves and electric toaster ovens was a major source of UFP, with peak personal exposures often exceeding 100,000 particles/cm and estimated emission rates in the neighborhood of 10 particles/min."
So in other words, a toaster puts out 10x more UFPs. Nothing to see here folks.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20087407
Right up there with frying food or scented candles. We'll get back to you on that, sure.
Actually, if you 3D-print a gun it can potentially emit a harmful normal-sized particle.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
:)
Yeah, I take my chances of cooked lentils over melted plastic.
That's the point, so you can defend against getting your head bashed into the sidewalk by a 17 year old with Iced Tea and Skittles.
They need to be enclosed and have a ionized air filter...
How do they compare to pollen? Are they full of spiky little projectiles that want to burrow into my nasal cavities and cross-polinate with my mucus membranes to create a giant mutant dandelion in my head? No? Then I'm not... ahh, ahhhhh, AH-CHOO!, sniff. worried.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
- burn your fingers
- trip on the power cord
- drop the printer on your big toe
Medical science has been saying for YEARS that frying Scented Candles is bad for your health.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
At least ,we're not all a bunch of chicken littles. As to this so-called "knee jerk" reaction, it's worth noting that the concerns of the story are pretty stupid. The human body and its teeming hordes of parasites (such as dust mites and viruses), for a near and dear example, is a huge generator of harmful nanoparticles. We call this stuff names like "dust allergies" and "communicable diseases".
Every time my kids break a plastic toy they are, no doubt, emitting plastic nanoparticles. Every time I crunch a milk jug in the trash or use a plastic comb I'm emitting plastic nanoparticles. Every time I snap open a plastic garbage bag or sit on my old polyester-upholstered sofa I'm emitting plastic nanoparticles.
Have you ever looked at the layer of paper dust around a printer?
There better be a lot of these particles emitted, or they won't be of much concern to me.
By which you mean the plastic shrapnel when it explodes in your hand. (Okay to be fair it does fire at your target too.)
3D printing shown to cause potentially harmful cuts into corporate profits.
People used to say the same thing about asbestos. Also, the types of materials used in 3D printing are not the same as dust and pollen and other "natural" particles.
Can they be made to place the UFP? I know they process is currently uncontrolled however a little engineering could make 3D printing even more interesting
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
So open a window or turn on a vent fan when you use a 3d printer. Good to know. Those of us with existing respiratory issues actually do appreciate hearing about unexpected sources of crap in the air.
Sure, it may put out the same amount of particles as more common things, but I imagine they're different types of particle. The site is dead so I can't check, but is there anything said about the relative dangers of one particle compared to another? I'm sure, for example, nanoparticles of plastics are much more hazardous than nanoparticles of burnt toast.
Medical science has been saying for YEARS that frying Scented Candles is bad for your health.
But breaded fried candles are part of my heritage!
Lactic acid, however, is an intermediate ion the energy metabolism of eukaryotic (AKA your) cells; it's produced as a fermentation by-product, which can then be broken down into CO2 + H2O in the presence of oxygen to extract remaining energy.
I'd go out on a limb and suggest that PLA is pretty damn "natural".
Another lot of "Researchers" wanting to use scare tactics to get funding.
"Additionally, more controlled experiments should be conducted...."
I like to see the testing results in a wood shop or metal shop. Let them measure nano particle emissions when using spray cans or how about a simple inkjet printer?
Suddenly the world is full of "Harmful" nano particles. Scary things you can't see or prove easily always good for a good scare.
We need a nano tax to stop the inhuman crime of nano particle emission. I want to see Greenpest protesting against nano pollution. Get your banners out morons.
So I cook and own a laser printer. I'm screwed. But last printer is another room, door closed.
Medical science has been saying for YEARS that frying Scented Candles is bad for your health.
Which is worse though, frying them or eating them fried? Obviously more healthy poached.
Wait...
Don't tease the participle just because it dangles. It can get some blue pills for that and then you'll be sorry!
@Whee
What about the next big thing from Boeing, flying Scented Candles?
:)
Yeah, I take my chances of cooked lentils over melted plastic.
:) :)
Tell me when you get to the "cooked lentils 3D printing" level.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
melting plastic results in fumes, gee go figure, glad we wasted our collective tax money on yet another "NO FUCKING SHIT" study
For regulation, and then restriction.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Will be awesome when you can 3dprint your food. Even better when the matter is brought into existance from energy (or maybe not depending on what's easier to come by =P, use sand or trash as raw material, turn it into energy and use the energy to make whatever matter needed for the food? Fine for me.)
Oh... My... Gawd!
I use a gas or electric stove on a nightly basis! Some nights I even *sobs* barbecue!
Wow. So these things make slightly less nanoscale dust than most 2D printers (which, inkjet or laser, make dusting your bookshelf look practically good for you). Call me when the liberal media stops trying to spread FUD about "gun printers".
WHY is there no +1 Troll mod? This really needs to be fixed.
Yes, smoke sometimes curls from the printhead. No surprises there. Usually, there's not much, but hey, ABS chemicals aren't exactly a health-product.
What I would have liked to have known though is whether the use of covers ( eg, stabilising temperature and keeping the workpiece enclosed ) make any difference.
There is actually benefit to using covered printers, so it wouldn't be that difficult to add some filters to them would it? It's an entirely practical approach too, since plastic fumes are always worth avoiding.
And the use of less emotive terms for smoke would have been nano-appreciated.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Enclose the printer and add a fan and a nano-filter. Done. Government conspiracy mitigated just like that.
Makin' that drank, dawg!"
Damn! That's just how I troll!
There was a similar study on this surrounding laser printers.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/printer-health.htm
If only that bastard Nixon were still alive to account for the atrocities of the agency he created so many years ago.
Above poster suggests study should have included mitigation effect of enclosures.
It would be interesting if an OSHA, CDC or other regulation/law could require enclosures, and invalidate the patent some company IIRC holds on them for public health reasons.
How long before someone figures out how to turn this phenomenon into a weapon? The reason this is important is that as soon as someone does, BAM, they're baned. That translocation to the brain thing's kind of worrisome. I keep important things there, wouldn't want bits of foreign material ending up in there. I likes me a CLEAN brain, not one what looks like that Pacific Garbage patch!
Slightly off topic but related, I've always wondered how much plastic the world drinks in a year from gallon milk/water containers. I've noticed there's always plastic pieces near where the lid screws on, and I can't imagine they are super careful with the process to make the containers, they've been the same since I remember back. Also, what about those plastic lined paper milk "boxes"? They always taste like paper, I can't stand drinking from those.
"The emission rates were similar to those measured in previous studies of several other devices and indoor activities, including cooking on a gas or electric stove, burning scented candles, operating laser printers, or even burning a cigarette."
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
Oh, you are of course SOOO HARDCORE, with your asbestos-filled lungs, Roundup-poisoned body, and this shit here giving you cancer in every single part of your body... unless the shit you call "food" kills you first. (Normally it only causes decades of pain and suffering.)
Our body evolved and *adapted* to deal with parasites, viruses, etc, you dumbfuck. It didn't adapt to this shit.
Did the high-fructose corn syrup already melt your brain away, or are you simply *that* willfully ignorant?
And I, for one, consider having the brains to avoid shitting/polluting where I live, to be the way we will have evolved to be adapted to it.
So keep being "hardcore", and die out, you moron. I'll be over here, being "chicken little", and having fun watching.
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Our body evolved and *adapted* to deal with parasites, viruses, etc, you dumbfuck. It didn't adapt to this shit.
I'd have to disagree with that, but only because you're wrong here. The natural world has a lot of small crap in it, including a lot of toxic, sharp and otherwise dangerous to breathe stuff. Even asbestos dust occurs naturally though probably not in quantities large enough to affect our evolution.
And I wonder what our relatively high resistance to toxins like round up comes from? I'd say evolutionary exposure to other such toxins in what we eat and breathe.
Second, you clearly aren't considering dosage or the kind of materials used in 3D printing, you know, basic toxicology stuff. Apparently the level of "nanoparticles" produced is lower than running an electric toaster or flushing a toilet. And last I checked, most 3D printers don't use asbestos or round up in the printing process. Imagine that, assuming you ever had the capability to do so.
Whatever it takes to create an excuse for the government to regulate them. Can't have the peasants making their own shit.
Gotta keep that Guangdong gravy train rollin.
3D printers will be regulated out of existence in two years. Guaranteed.
Boeing? My ex-girlfriend invented those at our last fight.
Guess I should have patented it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is obvious FUD created by some government to prevent people from using 3D printers to print guns.
Yup. Pretty much this right here. "We can't control it, so we'll make you scared of it." Complete bullcrap. Use it in a well ventilated area or add a few household filters to the room.
There hasn't been enough of these out for a long enough time for "OMG THEY CAUSE CANCER" of any kind. (Except in Commifornia, where everything causes cancer except liberalism.)
Does this sound suspiciously to anyone else like, say, 'moving'?
Long live the BSD license
It's the same as other shit we do every single day of our lives. Why is this written as a DOOM! story???
This must be a trap, if you have ever printed with PLA you know it smells sweet, kind of like maple syrup. I could sit next to my printer all day cause it smells so good. I guess its time to invest in some type of vented enclosure for my printer.
Polylactic acid is naturally biodegradable in the human body, forms lactic acid, which is also produced by your muscles during exercise. ABS is different.
Also known as Dreamliners
Emit potentially harmful nano sized particles.
This reeks of manipulation.
Use it in a well ventilated area or add a few household filters to the room.
And/or use one of those face masks you can get from the hardware store.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
.... technically true.........
Gee, I wonder how long before we can 3D-print gunpowder?
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