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The dangers of Dust Off

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Question: aerosols usually contain a "propellant" which causes many of these tragedies.

Why does DustOff (etc.) have a "propellant" in the first place? Why don't they just fill the can with compressed air?

Tom
 
I agree Tom, my "dust off" comes from my lungs
 
Tragic and frankly stupid. But then again so is the rest of the stuff people inhale, snort, inject, etc. We had one teenager buy a can one night and came back 10 minutes later to buy another one. It was pretty obvious he wasn't quite "right" and I refused. The danged kid started screaming discrimination, was going to sue, you name it.

Newer cans of 3M's version (maybe all of them?) has an additive that is supposed to make it pretty nasty to inhale. Just using it on negatives and scanners makes my eyes water.
 
NutmegCT said:
Question: aerosols usually contain a "propellant" which causes many of these tragedies.

Why does DustOff (etc.) have a "propellant" in the first place? Why don't they just fill the can with compressed air?

Tom
Click to expand...
Dust-Off doesn’t “have” a propellant. Dust-Off is the propellant. It’s a liquefied gas that stays liquid under pressure in the can. When you release it to atmosphere it expands back into a gas.

The material; 1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane, works as a duster when it’s packaged all by itself in a can with a nozzle that sprays gas.

It works as a propellant when mixed with something like oil, cleaning solvent or paint and packaged in a can with a nozzle that sprays an aerosol (mix of gas and liquid droplets).

It works as a “freeze spray” when packaged in a can all by itself with a nozzle that sprays liquid.

It works as a noise maker when packaged in a can all by itself with a horn instead of a nozzle.

And it works as a refrigerant when it’s sealed up in your car’s air conditioner. (1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane is also known as R134a)

It isn’t practical to use regular air for “canned air” because you can’t cram enough of it into a small, cheap commercial can to be useful.

You can get a useable amount of gas out of a small spray can because it’s held in the can as a liquid, which is far, far denser than the gas.

At room temperature, a can only needs to hold less than a hundred psi to contain the 1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane as a liquid. Nitrogen (the principle ingredient or air) in liquid form at room temperature generates thousands of psi of pressure.


PC.
 
Thank you PC for an explanation on exactly what this stuff is and how it works. Somebody discovered that the "propellent" itself had a use.

I'm still having trouble coming to terms with why someone would ingest anything like this. The more stories I read with such tragic endings, the more blessed I feel that neither of my two terrific children have ever messed with any drugs or stuff. They both have great jobs and are very focused. I'd like to think my wife and I had something to do with it, but sometimes I think some of us just luck out. And sometimes, no matter how diligent parents are, forces beyond their control over just take over. It happened to my wife's brother. He lost his son (same age as my son) to heroin.
 
When I was in High School, "PAM" spray oil had just been introduced.

That was the new high.....spray some PAM into a baggie and let the inhalation therapy begin. (It took them several years to change the formula and "remove" the high.)

Definitely NOT a wise thing to do...but when you're 16, you know EVERYTHING!

/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif
 
UPDATE to the Dust Off thing... I had an almost completely empty can of 3M's version of dust off sitting here. When they get just about empty they don't have enough "umpf" to do anything, so I figured I'd drain it and toss the can.

Big mistake.

I pointed it toward the corner of the room and let it empty itself. A total of 20-25 seconds of weak canned air in the corner.

Job done.

5 minutes later I walked through the door near that corner of the house and a few seconds later I started tasting the worst, awfullest taste. It coated my tongue and I couldn't get rid of it. Some lobster salad and OJ took care of the initial shock, but it lingered quite awhile.

Whatever they added to it to discourage snorting the stuff surely must work, it is NASTY!
 
come on Scott, thats a heck of excuse just to get some lobster salad /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif
 
I'll be hittin the computer and seafood store tomorrow. Good call!
 
Ugh, not this again. This kid went to our school, and when he died, we wasted a week of class time going through anti-drug crap again, which we had been innundated with since the fifth grade. The huffers were mad because they were smart enough not to hold the can upside down; the rest of us were more mad because we were even smarter and didn't do drugs in the first place. By the end of impromptu Anti-Drug Week, the entirety of Riverside High School ended up thinking Kyle was a tool.
 
Camshaft said:
By the end of impromptu Anti-Drug Week, the entirety of Riverside High School ended up thinking Kyle was a tool.
Click to expand...

He was someones beloved child, but that doesn't excuse the fact
that he did something incredibly stupid, while I have condolences
for the parents, I'm still angry that kids can be that stupid,
he may have been a neat kid, but his actions approach Darwinism...
 
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