Cadmium Toxicity.

[jdurg]

Hey guys, YT's thread in regards to cadmium reminded me of something I wanted to ask. In my element collection, I have a bunch of cadmium rods. However, they are old rods and have a lot of oxidation on their surface, and some show a red color from when I chiseled them into smaller pieces on a brick. The ends of a few of the rods have maintained a beautiful shine to them, and I'd like to polish a few of the rods in there to bring out the beauty of the cadmium. Sadly, I'm not sure what the best way to do this would be. With the toxicity of cadmium, I am not going to bring my dremel to it in order to polish it. I was thinking about taking some water and making it very damp, and then putting a rubbing/polishing compound on the surface to remove the oxidation. If I'm wearing rubber gloves, I shouldn't have to worry about the toxicity, correct? If it's damp there will be no dust flung into the air. The dust factor is why the dremel is staying locked away.

[YT2095]

it`s not considerably more toxic than Lead, do it outside and you`ll be just fine

[jdurg]

Ahhh. That's fine then. I can just do the 'sanding' and polishing either completely underwater, or using a very damp cloth while wearing gloves. To treat the wastewater solution, I could probably acidify it and then add sodium carbonate to it to ppt out an insoluble cadmium carbonate.

[Silencer]

or get one of those masks.

[jdurg]

I wound up polishing the cadmium by first dipping it into an acidic cleaning solution which ate away a little bit and the surface and helped remove surface dirt. I then went and got some polishing compound which is a really thick, gunky stuff that does a good job on smoothing things out. With the thick past over the surface, I then went and used a metal sanding cloth and LIGHTLY polished the metal. It worked out great as the surfaces are a little rough still, but HIGHLY reflective. Also, the past helped keep all the sanded metal in the gunk. When I was done I just washed the cadmium first in some pure isopropanol, then in a ton of water to make sure all the compound was removed. I dried it off and placed it back in the container after throwing away my gloves and anything that touched the cadmium laced goop.

[Gilded]

"it`s not considerably more toxic than Lead, do it outside and you`ll be just fine :)"

 

If you look at LD50 values, you can see that cadmium compounds are generally way more toxic than lead compounds. Same goes with pure metals. Cadmium is also a very potential carcinogen.

[YT2095]

my books don`t show it as anything other than a little more toxic than Lead, and less than Mercury.

 

and what is a "Very potential" anything? LOL )

[Silencer]

Can you believe people used to drink mercury as a medicine

[Artorius]

and swallow!! but his dead now.

[Silencer]

I wonder what it tastes like.

[Drug addict]

Can you believe people used to drink mercury as a medicine

 

It used to be used as a purgative (laxative), or to treat syphilis (by IM injection). Locally it was used as an antiseptic or for treating syphilitic ulcers. Organic mercurials were used as diuretics .

 

I wonder what it tastes like

Probably bitter as the powder had to be mixed with sugar when giving it to children.

[raivo]

There are some trully harmfull substances but many of those that are within last tens of years found as harmfull are not remarkably dangerous in reality. When substance is called toxic or carcinogenic in some cases it just means that if 1000 people deal a lot with it then 30 of them will get after years some dissease that is got "only" by 10 of 1000 in case of ordinary people. But 970 of 1000 did not get any disease. So what is proven here?

[jdurg]

Yeah, I did some further research and by polishing a cadmium rod I did no more harm to myself than if I had smoked a cigarette. And I quit smoking cigarettes a few weeks ago so I'm not concerned at all. Polishing/sanding cadmium isn't something that I'm going to do every day, but that one time of doing it is not going to suddenly make me drop dead. lol.

[YT2095]

I wonder what it tastes like.

 

the 1`st thing you notice is that it`s cold and feels heavy when in your mouth, it has no real taste at all, there is a slight "Metalic" taste afterwards though (hardly surprising).

if you `Swish` it around in your mouth it has a perculiar sensation, probably due to its weight, and it takes ages to spit it all out, sometimes a day or two even after you`ve eaten!

you`de brush your teeth, spit it aout and see little mercury droplets in the gap between the plug hole and the sink.

 

taste, Metalic, After about 20 mins or so, and can last for days

[budullewraagh]

sounds like you know this first hand

[Silencer]

well at least he didn't swallow.

[Tetrahedrite]

Mercury liquid itself isn't all that toxic! The most toxic mercury compounds are mercury vapour and organic mercury complexes such as dimethyl mercury. So ironically, you are much more likely to get sick from having uncovered mercury near you as opposed to actually drinking it!

[Tetrahedrite]

In addition to this, it is an interesting story as to how it was discovered mercury vapour was toxic. A long while back (probably in the 17th or 18th century) a ship left from spain with a load of mercury bound for South America. The mecury was to be used to process gold from the Spanish mines.

The mercury was transported in big leather pouches which where hung in the hold of the ship. During the trip the crew started getting sick and dying one by one. Eventually all but two of the crew died, the two that lived were the two who spent the most time in the crows nest, away from the vapour. Because the leather was porous , the mercury was seeping through and the vapour was filling the hold of the ship.