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Exposure limits of common solvents

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Hailstorm

Hailstorm

Esteemed member
Chemical engineer
I am attaching a chart that shows the recommended exposure limits for some solvents commonly used in DMT teks.

The higher the value, the safer the solvent is. Obviously the actual risk of a solvent will depend on the exposure duration, how concentrated and volatile the solvent is, and your personal biochemistry.

The numbers are in "ppms" (particles per million) averaged over a typical 8-hour working day.
The data is taken from here (click on each chemical to see its ACGIH TLV).

The value for Naphtha is only approximate - I personally believe it is somewhere between 200 and 400 as it contains n-Hexane.

I was surprised by how dangerous acetic acid vapors were. 5% vinegar is obviously 20x safer than concentrated acetic acid, but that smell is still legitimately bad for your health, it turns out.
 

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That's super interesting, do you have any reference for what 400 ppm is qualitatively like?

I know I've been a little nervous about fan evapping naptha pulls in my small apartment, and often get lazy about using the gas mask when doing pulls. It's really hard to say how bad this is for you, but I know it's definitely not ideal.

From what I've read, the side effects of naphtha exposure basically disappear when the polluted air is removed, but it's hard to know if there are long term effects to worry about.
 
do you have any reference for what 400 ppm is qualitatively like?
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400ppm for naphtha would be 1.6g/m3. So if the volume of your room is, say, 30m3 then, if you evaporate 48g of the solvent and let it spread around the room, you will reach the exposure limit. When you are working close to the fumes, your exposure is higher though.

it's hard to know if there are long term effects to worry about
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The "VM&P" naphtha (petroleum benzine) is a mix of pentane, hexane, heptane, octane, nonane in unknown proportions, as well as cyclical hydrocarbons (cyclohexane, etc.) possibly with trace amounts of aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, etc.). Out of the above, the least desirable are benzene (proven human carcinogen) and hexane (metabolizes into neurotoxic 2-hexanone and 2,5-hexanedione). The peripheral nerve damage is permanent and irreversible, but it takes several weeks of daily exposure to develop the symptoms.
 
Thanks Hailstorm, nice to see the products in a side by side visual comparison :thumb_up:
 
Hailstorm said:
The peripheral nerve damage is permanent and irreversible, but it takes several weeks of daily exposure to develop the symptoms.
Click to expand...

Well that sounds like a good reason to take the protective measures pretty seriously :thumb_up:

I'll be more careful in the future.
 
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