Lou

These saponifiers can be quite nasty, but I would suspect the MEA rather than the glycol ether as being most decidedly irritant. I'd say that a Dräger tube test (and possibly a carbon badge) for both components would be a good place to start. As a rule of thumb with MEA, if you can smell it when entering the room where it is used, it is already too high. You want it to saponify the carboxylic acids in the flux residues and not those in the body!

Epidemiologically speaking, your 8 sore throats are not sufficient evidence even to blame the saponifier, it may just be coincidence. After all, a streptococcus could cause exactly the same symptoms. I was called in once because the two ladies in a soldering department were suffering from bloated faces with red patches and they blamed a new flux (carboxylic acid activated rosin to DIN8511-SW-32 in an IPA solvent). They did not like the odour, much preferring the old one (RA, glutamic-acid-hydrochloride activated rosin in a terpene/IPA mix solvent). As my client was wanting to use the halide-free flux, I simply
replaced the IPA solvent with a 5% terpene (alpha-pinene) addition to IPA. This was sufficient to make the blotches disappear, the ladies were happy and the soldering actually improved slightly after a slight increase of the preheat temp. The powers of suggestion are ginormous.

Brian

Lou Hart wrote:

> TechNetters, for about 1 month, we have been using a new saponfier in our automated cleaner.  Composition is uncertain, the Material Safety Data sheet says it is less than 60% diethylene glycol butyl ether and less than 35% monoethanolamine.  The old saponifier was 24.8% "glycol ether category" and less than 40% monothanolamine, with some amount of tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol.  Approximately 8 people (of perhaps 16 in the work area) have experienced a sore throat and irritation with the new material.  Can anyone comment?  I wonder if this glycol ether is something especially troublesome.  Many thanks...Lou Hart
>
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