OK, Gordon, I'll reduce this side of the debate to "who is suffering
from the use of nickel in electronics?" The answer is, directly, very
few. In another life, I used to make bare PCBs and a person we hired as
a labourer in the plating shop did turn out to be sensitive (I won't say
allergic, because I believe that an allergy can be triggered only by a
protein) to nickel salts and we had to shunt him out to another
department. I think this is quite rare. I'm pretty sure that the
presence of nickel on the final assembly is harmless to the great
majority, just as lead is in the solder. At the cradle end, there is
obviously considerable environmental harm in the "getting". There are
emissions of vast amounts of SO2 which, in the presence of moisture and
oxygen, is oxidised into sulfuric acid which causes harm to trees,
lungs, life in general and masonry as well as accelerating the formation
of rust in steel structures (including vehicles). Calculating the cost
of this, either in economic or health terms, is extremely difficult but
I believe we can safely say that suffering is caused. However, what
percentage of the nickel mined ends up on PCBs? I frankly have NO IDEA,
but I'd hazard a guess at <0.001% or thereabouts. So, we can interpret
this as saying that electronics nickel plating and kovar leads (I won't
specifically mention primary or secondary cells with Ni, magnetic alloys
or other components such as magnetostriction transducers, as that is
another story) makes little contribution to this suffering.

Let's look at the grave end, now. Ideally, it would help everybody if
all that nickel were recycled but I cast doubt, in my ignorance, whether
it would be an economical proposition, unless secondarily as an
extraction of all metals (i.e., put the whole assembly in a succession
of acid baths until there is no metal left and then try to separate the
elements). So what would happen if incinerated? My guess is that it
would end up mainly in the ash which would then be landfilled. This
would POTENTIALLY be more hazardous than if the PCB were directly
landfilled, because it would be more particulate meaning it would be
less pure metal and more oxide. NiO is fairly unreactive except to
hydrohalic and other strong acids (which is why Ni is difficult to
solder and why it makes a good decorative plating) so leaching would be
slow. I believe the risk to the environment and ground water would be
low. Unlike lead, I don't know whether there is an ion exchange process
in soils which would exchange nickel by iron, but there may be: I've
never studied the true mechanism of ion exchange of leachates in soils.
Again, the quantities resulting from electronics assemblies would
probably be insufficient to justify much concern. On the other hand,
nickel salts are a good assassin of some microorganisms, including the
bacteria responsible for biodegradation in sewage treatment, as is also
copper. As the Cu:Ni ratio will be inordinately high, it is clear where
our priorities must lie if this department is a concern, especially as
copper is more easily converted to soluble salts.

I therefore conclude that Ni is unlikely to be a major concern with the
quantities used in electronics assemblies. However, this will not stop
ignorant technocrats and environmental NGOs from targeting it, if their
mood suits them. As this kind of thing is never based on scientific
premisses, this is totally unpredictable. I do think that there are
other heavy metals which will take priority over nickel in the
elimination game, such as mercury and cadmium. Even copper may logically
be targeted, but I doubt whether this would be considered as
tolerable!!!

I like the notion of metal-free electronics. Maybe the future lies in
simulating the computer stuck between your ears :-)

Brian

"Davy, Gordon" wrote:
>
> Mike Fenner has suggested that I may have over-reacted in my previous
> postings concerning the risk from using nickel and noble metals. I hope so,
> but in the present environment, it's hard to tell. I first heard of the move
> to lead-free solder from the late Roger Wild of IBM about fifteen years ago.
> At the time, I under-reacted. I dismissed it as frivolous and without
> technical merit. Roger was more prescient than I in getting an early start -
> just in case something were to come of it. What I failed to anticipate was
> how others would construe the "get-the-lead-out" movement, and how people
> would associate lead in electronics with lead in paint and gasoline. I was
> genuinely shocked to learn of the draft WEEE directive and the level and
> breadth of support it had. I was shocked to see that a company would claim
> on its web site that it was altruistically removing lead from its electronic
> products to protect the water supply (when the real reason was to increase
> market share). I was shocked to see that the IPC did not take stronger steps
> to resist, even though the position statement acknowledged that there is no
> technical merit to removing lead from electronic products.
> It was then that I started thinking, "if powerful people can force the
> removal of lead from electronic products with no good reason, what is to
> keep them from forcing the removal of anything else they don't like?" I
> posed that question on this forum over a year ago. And sure enough, just as
> I feared,  we are now starting to see calls for removal of other metals,
> based on guilt by association and appeals to emotion. (I wonder whether some
> day this forum will have to be renamed to the "metalfree" electronics
> forum!) I don't want to make the same mistake of downplaying the threat that
> I made before just because it doesn't make sense. Reason is no longer a
> necessity. It has been replaced by political correctness, and those who
> object to irrationality are not noble or courageous, they are
> environmentally challenged for not knowing the facts, and "unpragmatic" for
> not meekly acquiescing to the new reality in which the "frogs" (to use Brian
> Ellis' term) have already won.
> To find out whether I am over-reacting, let me invite forum participants to
> state which metals they think will continue to be permitted in electronic
> products for the indefinite future, which will probably have to be phased
> out, the basis for their predictions, whether they think that attempts to
> forestall such phaseouts would be pragmatic, and whether they agree that the
> phase-outs will be a good thing. In spite of the messiness of mining,
> without much more compelling arguments than have so far been offered I for
> one regard any such abandonment as the wrong response to the stimulus. It is
> to offer a technical solution to a political (or economic) problem. Who is
> "over-reacting"?
> (Mr. Fenner says he reads my post as a plea for the status quo. That is
> partly true - at least, I don't want things to get worse than they are, and
> I don't trust everyone who offers to "improve" things. I have observed that
> the second law of thermodynamics often applies to cultures as well as phyics
> and chemistry. Left to itself, a culture will deteriorate, and people
> struggling to make things better, not understanding the law of unintended
> consequences, as pointed out by Werner Engelmaier in his welcome comments,
> may well make them worse.)
> Mr. Ellis has explained that his posting was a reaction to my having implied
> nickel is harmless, that he tries to be reasonable (I am glad for his - and
> Mr. Fenner's - support for retaining lead in electronics), and that we need
> to look at the whole problem and not just a part of it. My reaction is
> simply to repeat what I've said before, that before banning the use of a
> metal in electronic products, what has to be shown is exactly what the
> problem is and how the proposed solution is going to ameliorate it. Reports
> of human allergy to nickel and anecdotes about mines are interesting, but we
> need to know whether anyone is suffering because of the use of nickel in
> electronic products, and that no less-stringent remedy is available. Unless
> we are to stop building electronic products, one or more metals is going to
> have to serve as the finish on component terminations, and for the
> forseeable future much of those metals is going to have to come out of the
> ground. It is the responsibility of the person who wants us to stop using
> nickel and noble metals to look at the whole problem and convince us (not
> just claim) that the world would be a better place if we were to mine less
> nickel and more tin.
> Mr. Fenner also commented that "if Doctoral theses were a min requirement
> for postings to this forum then debate would be somewhat stunted." That
> seems like an over-reaction to me. All I have requested is that if a person
> offers an opinion in an effort to convince the readers, he also offer
> relevant facts, solid reasoning, and a willingness to have them critiqued.
> The stakes here are immense - it's important that we get it right, even if
> that means disagreeing in public. I see this (and I hope others do, too) as
> a conflict, not among people, but of ideas expressed by people. The
> appropriate attitude is concern without anger, and I haven't detected any
> anger.
> Mr. Fenner has stated that I am wrong to assume that because of his posting
> he thinks tin is the best alternative to tin/lead, and I can see that I did
> over-react in lumping his comments with the others. Instead of offering an
> opinion without supporting facts, he offered facts without an opinion, and
> that's fine. All he did was to point out the mess that platinum mining
> makes. I incorrectly inferred that he thought that as a result, platinum and
> related metals should not be used in electronic products. I am sorry for
> expressing that assumption and happy that he does not want to convince us of
> that.
> Finally, he appealed for a "return to a pragmatic discussion and exchange of
> views". I do not agree that my comments are not pragmatic, because it is not
> pragmatic but wasteful to work on a solution that may at any time be
> "frowned at" by Ms. Wallstrom
> (http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/wallstrom/cv_en.htm) or Greenpeace
> (Who elected them? How did they get the ability to be always right?) or some
> other opinion maker, and prohibited as unacceptable. It is pragmatic to work
> on those things that have a high probability of success (assuming one is
> able to judge that probability correctly). (Sometimes the situation demands
> working on something just because you believe it is the right thing to do,
> regardless of the prospects of success - I'm sure on that matter Greenpeace
> agrees with me.)
> I would think that there must be many forum participants who have been
> working on finishes other than tin who are very upset to be told that
> they've been backing the wrong solution to the leadfree problem. They have
> read the discussion, and now they have an important decision to make.
>
> Gordon Davy
>
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