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Zinc "whiskers", page 2
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As an Industrial Hygienist, I have the opportunity to assess numerous health risks. Never have I seen any research about zinc whiskers or zinc needles. A minor search of professional IH groups has not identified any health based documentation. Of course zinc oxide, zinc stearate, and other zinc forms have been known and assessed for quite some time now. One article I recently read, attempted to draw a comparison between asbestos and zinc whisker exposure. While I can understand the electronic risks, do you know of any health based documentation? I am aware of the court case you directed others towards.
Thanks
Ed Kramer- St. Louis, Missouri
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Would you please give us that asbestos-zinc whisker article's reference please? Sounds a little far out to me.
++ I have not read the asbestos-zinc whisker article, but I do know that a relationship could be drawn between them. In at least one state (Michigan or Minnesota, I forget, but I'm sure there's others), the legal definition of 'asbestos' is any inorganic substance that has a 100:1 length-to-width ratio or greater. By this definition, zinc whiskers are classified as asbestos and a manufacturer could be sued on the grounds that the company is exposing their workers to asbestos. This legal definition is different than the true geologic definition of asbestos, which has this description in addition to others but is limited to a small range of silicate minerals. As a side note, 95% of all asbestos does NOT cause lung cancer. They do, however, cause asbestosis, which is the scarring of lung tissue as these crystals get stuck in the lung, which I'm sure that zinc whiskers could cause. I cannot remember which state this story came from, but some mining company that mined nothing similar to asbestos was sued for contaminating the river exiting the mining grounds with asbestos. After some scientific research was done, it was found that the mining company was keeping the river TOO clean. Some diatoms (aquatic microorganisms) that grow only in the cleanest of waters produced silica shells with a length-to-width ratio of 100:1 or greater, which met the legal definition. Unfortunately, I never heard about the conclusion of the lawsuit... Chase Watkins- Purcell, OK |
Fatal Deception: The Terrifying True Story of How Asbestos is Killing America |
Yes, certain particle sizes and shapes are troublesome regardless what material they're made of -- think of glass shards and the terrible bodily damage they can do despite how innocuous glass is as a 'chemical'.
Asbestosis is a real disease that had a number of industrial workers as its victims, and who have our deepest sympathy for their tragic fate.
But asbestos became a multi-billion dollar boondoggle, with the American golden goose butchered to feed our gluttonous legal industry. Now that our domestic plating industry is all but gone, it should be very amusing watching our legal industry trying to sustain itself by recovering damages for zinc whiskers from Chinese plating shops :-)
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 Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey |
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I am a co-author of the article referenced elsewhere on this site. It is not for any individual to make a claim as to hazards of any material. I realize that the comparison to asbestos has raised some eyebrows. First, I would like to say that the article being distributed is an excerpt of a much larger article that was prepared to outline a very specific operational function in an attempt to recover a zinc needle (zinc whisker) contaminated specification environment.
The citing of asbestos properties was made for the purpose of highlighting the fact that it is the shape of the debris, NOT what the chemical makeup, that create inhalation issues.
OSHA's consideration of inhaled zinc. One must do considerable research to discover the documents referenced in the writing of that article. In fact, in a cursory search, the OSHA site has no specific listing for Zinc, but rather Zinc Oxide. For any business concerned with safe and legal operations in America, the issue requires referencing the OSHA classification of whatever the worker may be exposed to in the workplace. There is clear documentation available from OSHA that states inhalation of airborne Zinc particles
(Specifically NOT Zinc Fumes nor Zinc Oxide) is considered to be much more than a respiratory irritant.
The following is taken directly from OSHA documentation referencing the hazards of inhaling zinc particles:
NAME: Zinc
IMIS: Z100
CAS: 7440-66-6
DESCRIPTION: Solid.
HEALTH EFFECTS: Irritation-Eye, Nose, Throat, Skin---Marked Respiratory Effects---Acute lung damage/edema Chronic(Cumulative) Toxicity-Suspect Carcinogen or mutagen
I trust this will clear up any questions as to whether statements made in that document are not in line with the OSHA listing.
I am not a metallurgist, nor a doctor. The document in question elsewhere on this site drew attention to the POTENTIAL hazards of inhaling zinc particles in order for our client to determine how his crew should proceed in the operation. Throwing caution to the wind is not prudent in dealing with large scale contaminations of any kind.
VRM
- Atlanta, Georgia
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"It is not for any individual to make a claim as to hazards of any material."
I could not possibly disagree any more strongly with that, Valan!
It may not be safe to rely on an individual's claims -- but they are the starting point of virtually all progress. Rachel Carson's
"Silent Spring" [link is to reviews of this book at Amazon] was the seed that started the whole environmental awareness movement. Please don't credit it to bureaucrats! Geez, they were busy carpet bombing our suburbs with toxic insecticides and engaged in city planning that guaranteed extermination of whole species like the Dutch Elm when Carson informed the world just how reckless and shortsighted the bureaucracy was. Carson should have kept her mouth shut!?
Besides, facts are facts irrespective of pronouncements. Are certain compounds actually carcinogenic in the USA but not in the EU, and vice versa, based on the differing pronouncements from the bureaucrats of the varying countries? That is completely ridiculous.
From my own experience, while OSHA was wishy-washying about whether hexavalent chrome was carcinogenic, it was difficult to get chrome plating fumes treated with respect because some architects felt it "was not for an individual to say" that they were hazardous. If someone feels that something is hazardous, they absolutely should say so. And if they feel that, in a world of limited resources and countless ever-present risks, zinc whiskers aren't a significant inhalation hazard for most of us, they should say that too.
Sorry, I can't find mention of your article on this site, Valan, beyond possibly "One article I recently read". If your referenced report is available, please provide a link; and if you can tell us what thread you are referring to on this site, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
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Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey |
P.S.: This "a thing is asbestos if it's longer than it's wide" discussion reminds me of the punch line of an old favorite song, Melanie's "Psychotherapy" [link is to product info at Amazon] :-)
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In silver and copper, the phenomenon has been known for about 425 years now, and for about sixty years in tin, zinc, and cadmium. Check out
Scientific American [link is to product info at Amazon],
203:1, 1960, p. 64 -- although the focus is on whisker growth from vapor, basal growth is mentioned. Metal whiskers are discussed in the
"Handbook" edition of R. Holm's "Electric Contacts" [link is to product info at Amazon].
Small amounts of lead, antimony, and a few other elements impede basal growth whisker formation -- probably by blocking material transport along grain boundaries.
Interest in metal whiskers is episodic, waxing when another costly failure is attributed to them.
- Greenbelt, Maryland
September 13, 2010
Cadmium Whiskers were noted by Bell Labs at least as far back as the 1940's and tin lead (i.e. solder) was touted as a readily available and well proven surface finish in industrial electrical widgets where appearance is not a factor. Cad was adopted because of its cheapness and effectiveness from an electrical point of view (Cd is fairly conductive, CdO is more conductive than many other cheap metal oxides). Solder coatings while more costly than Cadmium were still cheaper by far than silver and better electrically than Zn. Zn became popular in electrical applications where protecting gross structural elements from corrosion was of greater importance than good surface electrical conductivity. As time and technology progressed whiskers from Zn and Cd became more and more of a threat to the shrinking power levels of electronic signals and the shrinking spaces between the conductors that carry them.
As environmental awareness/political correctness (take your pick) started to pressure against the use of lead-containing finishes even inside electrical and electronic devices, pure tin was touted as the perfect substitute by the good folks who know little or nothing about electronics and metallurgy. Cheapskates in industry have always tended to want to use pure tin rather than tin/lead.
Turned out to be a real mistake to use pure tin with sensitive signals and tight conductor spacings though. It has done a lot of damage both to trivial consumer products that would probably be tossed anyway after a year or two as well as space satellites, medical devices, and military systems and transportation safety infrastructure.
Tin whiskers are a real threat, and while certain coatings can help mitigate the risk, nothing other than encapsulation in a truly hard material like epoxy will stop them. Such encapsulants render a system non-repairable and cause reliability issues of their own (cooling, residual stresses, CTE mismatches, etc).
Other metals that grow whiskers include indium, silver, lead, and gold (I have heard of but never seen this last one myself). None of these form whiskers that are a threat to reliability except inside of microcircuitry where dimensions are measured in nanometers rather than mils or millimeters. Ditto for whiskers from alloys like tin/lead solder. [Exception: silver is reported by some to form incredible whiskers in the presence of high concentrations of H2S, so look out if selecting a plating for use in electrical equipment around some petroleum processing equipment and chem labs (plating baths perhaps?) - generally the smell or the occasional operator keeling over dead will be a good clue.]
The exact mechanism of whisker growth is poorly understood, but it is generally regarded as mechanism whereby stressed plating layers relieve compressive stresses. Tin is the most studied and best understood for the most part. So plating should always be the second to last operation if whiskers are a concern, after all bending, cutting, drilling, etc. A stress relief anneal (at or slightly above reflow temperature should be last. Tin should not be used over metals with which it forms intermetallic phases that are less dense that the tin and metal that went into them (e.g. copper) but may be safer on surface where the intermetallics tend to be higher density (e.g. nickel). temperature cycling can be a stress inducer (especially with tin it seems). The presence of moisture is a factor (a poorly understood one).
Sound complex? Sorry! But there is a lot of info out there if you are willing to dig for it. I highly recommend http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/ as a great resource that is fairly specific to high reliability electronics but with links to stuff of more general interest.
- Goleta California USA
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