The Lethal Danger of Combining Welding and Brake Cleaner
With the availability of increasingly cheaper equipment, welding has become far more accessible these days. While this is definitely a plus, it also comes with the elephant-sized asterisk that as with any tool you absolutely must take into account basic safety precautions for yourself and others. This extends to the way you prepare metal for welding, with [Dr. Bernard], AKA [ChubbyEmu] recently joining forces with [styropyro] to highlight the risks of cleaning metal with brake cleaner prior to welding.
Much like with common household chemicals used for cleaning, such as bleach and ammonia, improper use of these can produce e.g. chlorine gas, which while harmful is generally not lethal. Things get much more serious with brake cleaner, containing tetrachloroethylene. As explained in the video, getting brake cleaner on a rusty part to clean it and then exposing it to the intensive energies of the welding process suffices to create phosgene.
Used as a devastating chemical weapon during World War I, phosgene does not dissolve or otherwise noticeably reduce in potency after it enters the lungs. Instead it clings to surfaces where it attacks and destroys proteins and DNA until the affected person typically dies from disruption of the lung’s blood-air barrier and subsequent pulmonary edema. Effectively your lungs fill with liquid, your blood oxygen saturation drops and at some point your body calls it quits.
The video is based on a real case study, where in 1982 a previously healthy 23-year old man accidentally inhaled phosgene, was admitted to the ER before being rushed to the ICU. Over the course of six days he deteriorated, developed a fever and passed away after his heart stopped pumping properly due to ventricular fibrillation.
Basically, if you are off minding your own business and suddenly smell something like musty hay or freshly cut grass when nobody is mowing the lawn, there’s a chance you just inhaled phosgene. Unlike in the video, where the victim keeps welding and waits a long time before going to the ER, immediate treatment can at least give you a shot at recovery if the exposure was mild enough.
As with laser safety, prevention is the best way to stay healthy. In the case of welding it’s essential to fully cover up your skin as there is intense UV radiation from the work area, protect your eyes with a quality welding mask and ideally wear a respirator especially when welding indoors. Show your eyes, lungs and skin how much you love them by taking good care of them — and please don’t use brake cleaner to prep parts for welding.
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