Safely working with Tellurium copper

As with most material, you should ask the supplier for this information and perhaps names of other businesses working with it. If the supplier can't or won't help, then how can you be sure the alloy is what he says it is, etc.

another Paul

snipped-for-privacy@Rasdoc.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I'm really looking for some advice that connects the

Machining something will put 1mg/m^3 into the air...

Paul

Hmmm, 0.1 mg/m^3 is not a lot of dust! So, that seems like a pretty severe restriction. Machining it with flood coolant should keep the dust down, if that is permitted. If you do the machining at low speeds, and the material produces stringy chips, then maybe the dust production will be very low, anyway.

Jon

I've read warnings on this list about Tellurium Copper.

Yet when I do the MSDS research:

The actual MSDS ammounts are for tellurium are 0.1mg/m^3 or 0.01mg/m^3

But the telerium copper has 0.05% Tellurim maximum. Assuming that the Tellurium stays alloyed with the copper we get:

Yet the copper limit is 1mg^m^3 so if you are safe working with straight copper the Tellurim should not be an issue.

The MSDS limit for aluminum dust is 15 mg/m^3

So by specification we are safer than Aluminum. Thats why the whole MSDS thing is out of hand, it provides ass covering material, but no real useful information.

I know of no machine shop that takes special precautions with certified resperators when machining aluminum.

Anyone with real experience, am I just being parinoid about the Tellurium?

(This is a hobby project not a production environment.)

Paul (Same as the origional poster froma differnt account)

OK, well that is totally different, then. You didn't spec the concentration at first.

Jon

According to Ken Moffett :

Looking at this above, I find *Beryllium* copper to have the lowest allowable exposure, as I would have expected. Tellurium copper does not seem to be that bad -- having a higher allowable exposure than lead in the copper.

However, I do remember tellurium having a reputation for providing really serious BO when someone is exposed to it. This may be fatal in a social sense.

But unless you find another MSDS focused specifically on Tellurium Copper alloys, I think that you are fine. It is the Beryllium copper which is the really nasty stuff IMHO.

Good Luck, DoN.

Not BO but garlic breath with low exposures.