Carbon dust from motor brushes

Not really, I've breathed in the stuff for years with no particular adverse effects. Might notice a lot of black mucus when you blow your nose for the next day, but that's the body doing 'what comes naturally' to eliminate this from the body.

I suppose years of day-in/day-out you should be concerned, but a simple dust mask can go along way for that. Graphite, the principle component, is not particularly hazardous (it is flammable, especially when blown into the air). Not carcinogenic. May irritate the eyes. Here is an MSDS for a related carbon/graphite powder. It does warn of 'prolonged and repeated overexposure', but what you described doesn't sound like it.

daestrom

Thanks a million!

My nose and eyes are a little runny (and I've already found the menti> > Hello,

| My nose and eyes are a little runny (and I've already found the | mentioned black mucus...much like working with toner), but I'll watch | myself over the next few days to be sure I don't have any adverse | effects.

The runny is good. You can buy these little inhaling gadgets at a drug store that are normally used for dry stuffed up noses to induce them to run more. That might help the process.

If any made it into your lungs, there's not much you can do about it unless you want to undergo a Liquivent treatment (this is the same stuff they used for liquid breathing underwater as seen in the movie "The Abyss" which really exists) to try and wash it out. Normally it would evaorate and be exhaled. But maybe it can be suctioned back out as a cleaning method.

Lungs are self-cleaning, providing you aren't a smoker. There's a gradual flow of mucus from the lungs up the airway, which cleans out this type of debris. Smoking stops the cilia working (cilia, tiny hairs, push the mucus up the airway), and also stops the mucus from working as a cleaning agent. This is why smokers have to cough up the mucus, whereas it's a continuous automatic process for non-smokers which rarely involves coughing.

carbon, basic element of life, unless ionized and charged will offer no toxic hazard.

however, substantial amounts lodged within lungs or sensitive areas will cause effects undesirable for good health

what u got was probably far less than sitting in a bar filled with second hand smoke from persons near you. standing near a diesel motor bus would be worse.

shards of copper and other rotating metal parts would provide you with worse problems, usually as dust or micro abraded during usual operation of the device.

also, lubricants may have been bound/dispersed with the dust, they can be of any type, some are known toxic.

air drawn into/through the motor over years of use would carry any unknown pollutants in also.

you may have symptoms from being highly-sensitive to pollutants in general, as you may have had little pre-exposure to aerosol contaminants prior to this.

reccomend u take a shower, snort some clean warm water up your nose, blow it out to flush any crap.

you probably were on verge of having a sinus attack anyway ;-))

On 14 Nov 2006 08:06:28 GMT Andrew Gabriel wrote: | In article , | snipped-for-privacy@ipal.net writes: |> If any made it into your lungs, there's not much you can do about it |> unless you want to undergo a Liquivent treatment (this is the same |> stuff they used for liquid breathing underwater as seen in the movie |> "The Abyss" which really exists) to try and wash it out. Normally |> it would evaorate and be exhaled. But maybe it can be suctioned back |> out as a cleaning method. | | Lungs are self-cleaning, providing you aren't a smoker. | There's a gradual flow of mucus from the lungs up the | airway, which cleans out this type of debris. Smoking | stops the cilia working (cilia, tiny hairs, push the | mucus up the airway), and also stops the mucus from | working as a cleaning agent. This is why smokers have | to cough up the mucus, whereas it's a continuous automatic | process for non-smokers which rarely involves coughing.

Lots of other stuff causes them to stop, too. Fine dust is a big problem. You do have to caugh it up, and it never gets all of it. My grandfather was an electrician in coal mines. Guess what he died of. It wasn't an electrocution.

All true, but I think the particle size is a factor.

But I don't think the carbon-black that comes from electrical brushes is fine enough to be much of a problem. It's not like it's constantly being reground into finer and finer particles; they just break off and leave the brush for ever.

daestrom

replying to daestrom, Julian wrote: In the Navy, on particular deployment, our machines ate their brushes because of paint fume contamination. The particles are very fine dust. We, the electricians, breathed in a very large amount into our lungs. Blew black boogers for days. However, that was 30+ years ago and haven't heard of any of sick from it..

replying to daestrom, Julian wrote: In the Navy, on particular deployment, our machines ate their brushes because of paint fume contamination. The particles are very fine dust. We, the electricians, breathed in a very large amount into our lungs. Blew black boogers for days. However, that was 30+ years ago and haven't heard of any of sick from it..