Great coolant except its toxic

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Not good. I have both old age and decrepitude. I am 99 7/8% convinced to try the 78. It is a lighter product with less lawyer speak than the 77. The $60 dollar price tag is a bummer however. Another supplier I use has a product called Trico Tri-Cool TC1. No idea what is in that. The advertising bumf claims it is the best thing since neat Scotch but I suspect the fine print on the label will caution about getting it anywhere near a living breathing monkey like they all do.
 
All this talk about misting coolant onto the component that is being machined, has anyone thought about breathing in this material. ?
I supply, service and repair industrial air compressors and one of the greatest problems I have is the oil / air cooler radiators getting clogged up with the water miscible coolants that we now use. The cooling fans pull the coolant in the air through the radiators where the water evaporates and the oil turns to a gell and clogs the rad. The first thing the client knows is when the compressor shuts down due to overheating. I then have to remove the rad and get it de-greased and hot washed to remove the muck so that the compressor will run without the increase in temperature.
My point is just what are we breathing in and what damage is this coolant doing to our lungs ? In a modern manufacturing facility with numerous CNC machines there is an enormous number of these machines and all of them spraying quantities of coolant into the air for us to breath. Are we going to have the same type of problems that the coal miners and asbestos workers ended up having years ago.?
 
GrahamJTaylor49 said:
All this talk about misting coolant onto the component that is being machined, has anyone thought about breathing in this material. ?
Are we going to have the same type of problems that the coal miners and asbestos workers ended up having years ago.?
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I agree with Graham. I've been fortunate to survive(just) through all these so called safe practices- which were not!
 
We've been using soluble oils for a hundred years by now. I don't think they are really recognised as deadly chemicals, since they are pretty bio-compatible to begin with. Professionally I am using a soy bean oil based lube. One thing amateurs tend to do is run cutting fluids too thick - 20..30 parts to 1 is entirely reasonable. Grinding fluids run at 50:1 or thinner.
 
I do wonder how much machining one does to be "coated head to foot" in coolant in a home machine shop, yet not have to buy coolant in 55 gallon drums, let alone 1 gallon being sufficient any given job.

Mist filters and exhaust systems exist if this is truly a concern. I'd also be curious about other aspects of daily life which are of much more relevant.
 
I'm senior research engineer for our company R+D operation, and the boss bought me a machine shop as a joining gift :) We push a LOT of work through my shop, not as much as a production shop, probably about as much as a model eng. shop who is getting a lot of hassle from their other half to get a proper life and stop messing in the shop all day.

In 5 years, I haven't quite finished a 5 gallon pail of coolant.

I stopped using flood coolant, and started using a shop built fog buster. Now I get better chip evacuation, and no mist around my tools at all.
 
Spraying coolant from a squirt bottle onto rapidly spinning work usually results in more coolant on me than the workpiece. I have a particular talent that way. My few excursions into fiberglass work resulted in me wearing a lot more cloth and resin than the model I was attempting to repair. Ditto any sort of glue. While misting spray is very dilute, it will be impossible not to breath it unless a respirator is worn. Many happy hours in the shop making chips and scrap would result in a regular intake of chemical, so it is probably worth a bit of research to see what impacts that may have. While a Guiness and a glass of scotch each night is probably in reality toxic too, I much prefer that method of poisoning myself than Poly(ethylene glycol-ran-propylene glycol) monobutyl ether.
 
With all this talk about the toxicity of coolants I think we might be more concerned about the micro fibres that we are breathing in from our synthetic clothing. With the enormous amount of waste plastic around these we, as engineers, must be able to find a way of turning it back into oil and then use it for coolant.
 
Excellent Idea, I seem to remember a YouTube video that shows a guy that has invented a way to reprocess plastic into gasoline. It was popular a few years ago. Wonder what has happened with that?
 
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