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Comment by eternityforest | Hacker News Reader

I think this is what someone I knew used. He had all kinds of health problems, diabetes, vision issues, heart problems, and he suspected it was from some electronics related chlorinated solvent.

It's also in brake cleaner, which I have no idea how anyone tolerates that stuff.

I've never in my life been in a situation where I wanted a stronger solvent than acetone, I'm very skeptical most of these harsh cleaning chemicals are actually needed outside specialist industrial uses.

There's a lot of chemicals that do basically the same thing with widely varying desire to kill you. I don't understand why people like the dangerous ones.

They say it works better but what does that mean? Saves a few minutes? Gets it cleaner? Are people seeing failures in the field because of the less toxic alternatives leaving residue? Does it even matter at all how clean or not some of this stuff is? Is it just gonna get covered in more grease in 5 minutes?

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I remember that if you use brake cleaner on hot parts, you would get a really really toxic chemical.

EDIT: phosgene gas.

Chlorinated brake cleaner containing tetrachloroethylene will, on exposure to high temperatures (above 500 °F (260 °C)) or strong UV light, decompose into phosgene and hydrogen chloride, both of which are extremely dangerous if inhaled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_cleaner

I used to work in an automotive wire manufacturing plant. One of the plastic coatings we used was PVC. When the operators would have quality problems (centering the copper within a few mm of the plastic sheath or uneven sheath surface defects), they would suspect their tooling (tip + die) was in some way dirty or compromised. The proper way to remediate was to shut down the line (plastics extruder, pulleys, etc) and replace the tooling with a fresh clean set. Then restart. Total cycle time might be 30 mins. Unfortunately, this came at great expense to the operator in lost efficiency since they were paid by productivity (how much good quality wire was produced during their shift) which obviously took a serious hit. So, in spite of warnings about the dangers of toxic fumes (phosgene), they would take the personally efficient and lucrative shortcut of running a blow torch against the suspect tooling while the line was in motion until the quality “wrinkle” was ironed out (e.g some rogue piece of hardened plastic on the tooling has been melted/burnt away). Problem solved and paycheck protected. It was a daily occurrence to see little plumes of smoke regularly wafting upward periodically across 7-8 separate production lines and settling in the top 1/3 of the factory airspace. Phosgene was undoubtedly a large component. No amount of admonishment and warning can be effective when it hits the operators wallet. For those unaware of phosgene, “ When vinyl chloride burns, it releases hazardous chemicals such as phosgene and hydrogen chloride into the air. Phosgene is a colorless gas with a pungent odor that can cause vomiting and breathing difficulties“ [0]

[0] https://trulaw.com/the-dangers-of-vinyl-chloride-phosgene-an...

Phosgene is heavier than air (and so it sinks to ground level). That's why it was used in trench warfare in WWI. It would have stayed down where the workers were, not floated up by the ceiling. Those would have been other toxins up there.

Interesting. And Yikes! That's even worse than I thought for all of us on the shop floor. There was so much particulate in the air on a regular basis that a white paper taped on the wall at the start of the day was gray by lunch time. No masks. Appreciate the additional insight.

  It's also in brake cleaner

It pays to check the (M)SDS. Chlorinated brake cleaner is nasty stuff, real dangerous if you're using it on something you want to weld. However, I haven't seen chlorinated brake cleaner in California since I was a kid. Lately they've been cracking down on the non-chlorinated stuff due to VOCs. The non-chlorinated stuff I use is acetone, naptha, heptane+n-heptane, and CO2.

Acetone is blissfully not so toxic but it is extremely volatile, which is both a safety and a practical concern. I bought a small flask of the stuff recently from the big box store and you could not buy it at the self-checkout.

The chlorinated stuff is just a better solvent. Dries faster, leaves less residue (than some non-chlorinated versions), and is better at dissolving the greasy funk. Generally it's not enough of an improvement, even if you have the chlorinated stuff at your disposal.

> Acetone is blissfully not so toxic...

I'll say. Oak Ridge National Lab has this to say about the toxicity of acetone:

> Acetone (CAS No. 67-64-1) is a clear, colorless, highly flammable liquid with a vapor pressure of 182 mm Hg at 20C (Morgott, 1993). It is completely miscible in water and soluble in organics such as benzene and ethanol (ATSDR, 1994). Its log Kow has been estimated to be -0.24 (ATSDR, 1994). Acetone is used primarily as a solvent and chemical intermediate, and it is also found in some consumer products such as nail polish remover (Inoue, 1983; Kumai et al., 1983).

https://rais.ornl.gov/tox/profiles/acetone.html

Given a choice between the chlorinated stuff, and something one can drink half a shot glass of and not suffer any toxic effects, I'll take the acetone any day.

I generally buy my acetone online, BTW. It's relatively easy to buy small quantities of pure acetone, because it's sold as nail polish remover.

> Given a choice between the chlorinated stuff, and something one can drink half a shot glass of and not suffer any toxic effects, I'll take the acetone any day.

Fun fact: if you drink isopropyl alcohol, your body metabolises it (partly) to acetone, which you can smell and taste. But, well, don't drink either anyway. :-)

Well, even in California, you can buy pure acetone OTC – you just have to interact with a human cashier who probably won't even know why the self-checkout refuses to let you buy it. I don't care one way or another except that the big box stores try to push you towards the self-checkout lanes.

Nail polish remover, like non-ethyl alcohol, is likely to be adulterated (e.g. with scents or crap to soften your cuticles, etc.). Depending on how clean you need something to be it may be an issue (and you probably can find high test nail polish remover). I was removing these infernal stickers from cooking implements so I went with the big box store. Depending on what you're working with you may still need to wipe it down with isopropyl anyhow.

> Nail polish remover, like non-ethyl alcohol, is likely to be adulterated

Not if you buy the stuff that literally says "pure acetone," e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Onyx-Professional-Acetone-Remover-Fas...

I was going to suggest that the only "adulterant" likely to be in something labeled "pure acetone" would be water from the air, but Stack Exchange suggests differently: https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/54341/acetone-...

Acetone bought from your local shop that sells car spare parts, tools, and whatnot is likely several orders of magnitude cheaper than the same acetone bought from the cosmetics department. I keep offering my bottle of acetone to my SO but she insist on using the cosmetics department version. ;)

I think many nail polish removers aren't pure, so you have to check. Usually hardware stores have cans of acetone without any additives.

This is a popular brake cleaner sold on Amazon [0] that I bought some time ago, I'm not sure but reading through the SDS it seems it does not contain TCE? It says it contains "Hydrocarbons, C6-C7, n-alkanes, isoalkanes, cyclics, <5% n-hexane"[1]

[0] https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B005510S9M/

[1] https://www.service.european-aerosols.com/en/products/presto...

I didn't look at the links, but from the ingredients list you posted, yes those are pure hydrocarbons, nothing chlorinated.

There are two common types of brake cleaner available in most of the United States: chlorinated and non-chlorinated. The big advantage of retail packaging is that it's typically in an aerosol can so you have the added perk of mechanical cleaning action. I typically use CRC brand stuff since it's easy to find, doesn't seem to harm most of the PA6/66 plastic under the hood, and works well. In not-California CRC markets the chlorinated brake cleaner with a red label and the non-chlorinated stuff with a green label. In California it's all non-chlorinated (potentially all low-VOC now too) despite the red/green cans having different SKUs. I suspect that the EU outlawed the chlorinated stuff a while back as they're typically more proactive than not-California.

Having used TCE to clean heavily fouled parts I can't emphasize enough how much better it is than acetone. It's really not close. Acetone might as well be water compared to TCE. TCE makes years of caked-on, baked-on crud wipe off like it was never there. And 30 seconds later not a trace of residue will remain. In the extremely rare case that something is hard to clean with TCE, that same thing will be nearly impossible to clean with a less evil substance.

Don't get me wrong, I have zero doubt it causes cancer and God-only-knows what else. The stuff is like an eraser for physical reality. Whatever tiny droplets of it you breathe in, are desperately trying to clean your nasty organs away and leave a gleaming, residue-free skeleton behind. I suspect it could clean the face right off your head like in the end scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I no longer use it. For my purposes anything that can't be cleaned without TCE, doesn't need to be cleaned that badly. But I do get why it was used so much.

Having worked in art-related fields which involve various dangerous processes, many people are cavalier about the dangers of toxins. They do not accept that safety equipment or precautions are worth the effort, and often gauge danger by whether they feel ill immediately so long/medium term hazards are ignored. It’s a combination of machismo, laziness and ignorance.

Gosh, I've watched an old school mechanics clean misc items and even their hands with brake cleaner many times...

Its great for cleaning guns without having to disassemble them. Half assed but better than nothing, aka "field expedient"

The stuff I have here says "C6-C7, n-alkanes, isoalkanes, cyclics, <5% n-hexane.

So basically, "tin of shit that's too thin to call petrol", here in the UK.

I haven't seen the chlorinated stuff for years, either.

I use isopropyl alcohol for cleaning bicycle brake discs - that evaporates away without leaving residue, but you don't want to be inhaling too many fumes from it.

Pretty much any of this stuff - including the chlorinated stuff - is okay as long as you're using it somewhere well-ventilated and not making a habit of getting it on you.

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