Acetone/IPA cleaning

[kevlarion]

From MSDS (no idea why section 8.2 was missed) from thornton and Ross for 99% acetone

Viton or PVA gloves are recommended.
Repeated skin exposure causes dryness and cracking (contact dermatitis)


8.1. Control parameters
Long term exposure limit 500ppm (1207 mg/m3)
Short term exposure limit 1500ppm (3620 mg/m3)

8.3. Exposure controls )
Engineering Controls – Explosion proof general and local exhaust ventilation.
Eye/face Protection – chemical goggles or face shield
Hand protection – Viton rubber or PVA gloves.
Skin protection – overalls must be worn when handling large quantities.
Other protection – prevent skin contact.
Respiratory protection – if high vapour concentrations wear respiratory protection.

Gloves suppliers like Ansell and Polyco will be able to offer you gloves with breakdown times which match your needs. For instance if you only need 15 minutes resistance disposable nitril or latex might be appropriate

[Jack Kane]

I'm late in to this topic, but I'd like to add a few signposts for further advice and to help others reading.

laurae, how have things ended up now?

Have you tried to eliminate the need for cleaning the parts in the first place?

Has anybody challenged the use of acetone in the first place? I mean, is it being used because it's the easy option? If your company was banned from using acetone, what alternatives would they come up with?

I worked with acetone in a previous life, before I was a safety guy. I used to clean highly polished surfaces when building precision measuring machines, all by hand and blue cloths, usually without any sort of hand protection as it was rarely available. We had loads of it all over the place, small squeezy bottles in our toolboxes and more often than not they leaked.

In fact, everything I know now about using flammable stuff, we had no control over our solvents in the slightest.

My hands dried up, they got red, irritated, scabby and eventually they started cracking and leaving me with some quite severe open hacks which bled. Cold made it worse, lots of washing of hands made it worse (or my lack of drying them properly)...daily exposure to acetone, dusts, water, sweat inside gloves if I had them on. Incidentally, my right hand is much worse than my left as I'm right handed and tended to use it the most.

I'm not an expert and I know acetone isn't a sensitiser, but it does de-fat the skin leaving it open to irritation from many more everyday substances, including some soaps etc. Remove the acetone and the skin should get better over time.

However, I still suffer from the same effects all these years on and I'm convinced that with a combination of the work with acetone, our climate (Scotland), exposure to everyday substances and general 'hand life', then my hands have never really healed fully. I should really take a real hard look at what irritates my hands and eliminate those, but I never find the time for some reason

Here's a few links for others regarding contact dermatitis and how to prevent harm to your skin at work.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/skin/
https://www.healthyworkinglives.scot/wo ... zards.aspx
https://support.fitforwork.org/app/answ ... e/Employee
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/contact-dermatitis/

As much as I'm very reluctant to recommend any products on here, let alone those of the PPE kind, I do highly recommend Derma Shield as a last resort PPE control - https://www.dermashield.co.uk/

I hope that's useful for some.