Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Heavy metals from eastern batteries...

kazaa81 - 22-10-2005 at 08:48

Hallo to all,

from many years heavy metals like cadmium and mercury (Cd & Hg) have been banned from batteries.
Some days ago I got some chinese-asian batteries, who don't say anything about heavy metals absence or, at maximum, say low-percentage.
I would plan to extract metals from batteries (metallic Hg is nice, even only to look). How can this be done? If it is feasible, I would buy some more asia imported batteries!

Thanks all for help ;)

chromium - 22-10-2005 at 11:03

Hg was used only in certain battery types. ( even at good old times ) I do not belive those are sold nowadays anywhere expect maybe in some developing countries.

Relatively common are rechargeable Ni-Cd batteris. I once used these to get some nickel sulfate.

I dissolved stuff from AA Ni-Cd battery in hot dilute sulfuric acid (took lot of time ) and after some evaporation and cooling nice green nickel sulfate crystals settled out.

Liquid phase probably was mostly cadmium sulfate but i did not check this.

kazaa81 - 22-10-2005 at 11:32

Hg is still used (not that much) in not great amounts in batteries where certain types of standardization hasn't come.
So, interesting metals to extract from batteries are Hg, Cd and, why not, Li.

Any information welcomed

hinz - 23-10-2005 at 14:03

I have opened an old NiCd batterie, and now I'm tring to convert the low soluble Cd(OH)2 at the cathode into the good solubleCd(CH3COO)2 (I have actually no use for it, but maybe I'll get some use for it some day) by acetic acid, but the process took longer than assumed. Theoretical the process should work fast (acid/base-reaction) but after a half a hour there where still the smell (not taste:)) of acetic acid(could be the low solubility of Cd(OH)2 )
Maybe I made a misstake, but the solution did't turn green like most of the nickel salts, instead the black stuff I took gave me a black solution, I thought the balck stuff was the cadmium hydroxide. Does anyone know if a binder is used for the Cd hydroxide, because pure Cd hydroxide should be a white powder.

For people who want pure Cd they have to charge the batterie first since the loading process is:
2 NiO(OH) + Cd + 2 H2O (loaded)↔ 2 Ni(OH)2 + Cd(OH)2(discharged)

[Edited on 24-10-2005 by hinz]

The_Davster - 23-10-2005 at 14:07

Quote:
Originally posted by hinz
... but after a half a hour there where still the taste of acetic acid


Wait...You are testing the presence of acetic acid in a Cadmium containing solution by taste!:o Cd ions are very carcinogenic.

hinz - 24-10-2005 at 07:07

Oh shit I meant smell not taste, I'm not stupid:)

Magpie - 30-3-2007 at 13:24

I need a small amount (~1 g) of cadmium iodide. Brauer shows how to make this from cadmium sulfate. Hinz, in his 1st post above, indicates that in the charged state a NiCd battery will have elemental cadmium. Is it possible to just cut open such a battery and extract a piece of pure cadmium? Has anyone ever done this?

Any suggestions for a cheap OTC source of a small amount of Cd or CdSO4 are welcomed.

not_important - 30-3-2007 at 14:23

Quote:
Originally posted by Magpie
I need a small amount (~1 g) of cadmium iodide. Brauer shows how to make this from cadmium sulfate. Hinz, in his 1st post above, indicates that in the charged state a NiCd battery will have elemental cadmium. Is it possible to just cut open such a battery and extract a piece of pure cadmium? Has anyone ever done this?


I did many years ago, with surplus NiCd batteries that distantly resembled lead acid batteries - not the C and D cell types.

The electrolyte is aqueous KOH, I drained that out the refilled and drain the batteries with plain water a couple of times. After that it was cracking the cases and removing the plates, then picking which was nickel and which was cadmium. I used nitric acid to dissolve them, there was carbon mixed in with the Cd(OH)2 and boiling with 40% acid seemed to destroy much of it.

Cadmium salts tend to be difficult to crystallise. I don't remember what I did to make sure no nickel came along, but it was all wet process stuff.
Quote:
Any suggestions for a cheap OTC source of a small amount of Cd or CdSO4 are welcomed.


You may be able to find art paints that still used cadmium sulfide or selenosulfide - cadmium reds, oranges, and yellows. If it's the real cadmium stuff there likely will be warnings on it, it's being replaced with other pigments - be warned that some paints reain the "cadmium red" colour name without having any cadmium in them. Mix the oil paint with paint thinner or other cheap hydrocarbon solvent, let the pigment settle and drain off the solvent, repeat several times.

Alternatively the same cadmium compounds are used for some low fire pottery stains and glazes. I've bought what turned out to be straight CdS as a stain long ago.

If you can get any of those, hot HNO3 or HCl will dissolve the pigment. If it's a selenosulfide I would not use HCl because the Se can come off as the chloride. Hot sulfuric acid might work as well, you may have to use concentrate acid and heat enough that it oxidises the pigment.

UnintentionalChaos - 30-3-2007 at 18:36

Se coming off as the chloride? Wouldn't the fear be of H2Se, which is noxiously poisonous? Also be aware that many Cadmium red paints are probably contaminated with BaSO4. I have some high quality stuff on me that the company claims is pure Cadmium Sulfide/Selenide (generic description of cadmium paints), probably mostly or completely selenide since it is a deep red paint (Old stuff too....I have some tubes of real vermillion that I don't intend to open...the stuff is somewhat rare and expensive since no company that I know of produces it anymore) I would very much like to isolate both cadmium and selenium from the paint for the element collection (slowly coming along)

not_important - 30-3-2007 at 18:57

They may have BaSO4 in them as well, especially in the paints; contaminated isn't theproper word as it is put there intentionally. But barium sulfate is pretty stable to common acids at reasonable temperatures, so it would be left as a white solid. If all that is needed is a couple of grams of Cd, paint may be the simplest way to go. I'd even try checking out art departments at schools, asking if they any old, dried up tubes of paint they might have, for "analytic chemistry practice". There's a few other useful elements and compounds to be found, if you don't want more than a few grams it can be a very low cost way to get those samples.

I always used HNO3 or that plus HCl, so it was a fairly oxidising environment. But I've read some old time qual analysis texts where selenium was distilled out of samples where it should be present as Se(2-) by treatment with HCl, HBr, or mixes of those; the Se came over as halides.

In either case, as hydride or halide, you don't want to be breathing it.

Levi - 30-3-2007 at 19:39

If you intend to take apart a battery make sure you have eye protection at the very least. Some time ago, I took apart a C battery and was surprised to find it slightly pressurized. A glob of sulfuric acid and lead powder shot out and landed harmlessly nearby, but it could have just as easily hit me in the face.

not_important - 30-3-2007 at 20:20

Quote:
Originally posted by Levi
If you intend to take apart a battery make sure you have eye protection at the very least. Some time ago, I took apart a C battery and was surprised to find it slightly pressurized. A glob of sulfuric acid and lead powder shot out and landed harmlessly nearby, but it could have just as easily hit me in the face.


That was a nice thing about the old NiCd batteries. They weren't fully sealed, there was a hole closed by a screw that was used to add make-up water. Take the screw out, invert the battery over a bowl and let it drain, refill with water to rinse, repeat. Got ride of the KOH solution just like that.

But the newer C and D cells are sealed, so yes care should be taken as strong KOH solution is no better than sulfuric acid when it comes to having on you.

Magpie - 2-4-2007 at 18:52

Today I checked out the art paint pigments for cadmium. As previously noted there is quite a variety: cadmiumzinc sulfide also known as YP35, cadmium/selenium sulfide, and cadmium sulfide/barium sulfide. There are also paints calling themselves "cadmium yellow" that don't have any cadmium but an organic compound instead. I was ready to buy a tube of cadmium yellow oil paint but it was too expensive. It would be better to just buy the Cd metal itself.

Feeling frustrated at having to wait for a shipment of Cd I decided to tear into a NiCd C cell that I had recently charged. I was a bit aphrehensive about this due to all the warnings about possible explosions. I had a tough time just finding out how these are constructed. I finally found 2 decent documents on the Energizer web site, including a cut-away drawing. I have to say that these small cells are a marvel of technical achievement and mass production.

Wearing eye protection and rubber gloves I locked my Panasonic C cell in my vice. I first drilled a small hole on the top to vent any pressure - there was none. I then cut off the top (+ end) about 5-6mm down using a hack saw. When the top was off I picked at the "jelly roll" a bit with a pair of needle nose pliers, trying to pull it out of the can. I saw 2 small red glowing "burns" which at first I thought was pyrophoric fire. Now I think it may have been just shorting. I got very concerned about this so put the assembly in a bowl of canola oil. I then drilled a 3-4mm hole in the bottom of the case and pushed out the jelly roll with a screw driver. I was relieved to get it out as I then felt I shouldn't have to worry about an explosion.

The jelly roll consisted of two stiff tapes as shown below. I believe the silver one is cadmium pasted on a perforated metal support, and the black one nickelic hydroxide pasted on a perforated metal support. Between the electrodes was a translucent white fibrous gel separator.

Comments and advice are welcomed.

[Edited on by Magpie]

NiCd C cell.jpg - 38kB

Magpie - 3-4-2007 at 13:41

I have worked out a scheme to get fairly pure CdI2:

1. Dissolve the Cd electrode scrapings in hot 40% nitric acid.
2. Filter, retaining the filtrate.
3. Evaporate to near dryness.
4. Dissolve in 0.3N HCl.
5. Saturate with H2S forming fairly pure CdS.
6. Filter, retaining the solid CdS.
7. React with HNO3 forming Cd(NO3)2 as a solution.
8. Form Cd(OH)2 from Cd(NO3)2 per Brauer.
9. React Cd(OH)2 with H2SO4 to form solution of CdSO4.
10.Form CdI2 from CdSO4 per Brauer.

It seems I shouldn't have charged that cell. That would have taken me directly to step 9. But I don't know how pure it would have been.

Any comments or suggestions?

[Edited on by Magpie]

Magpie - 19-4-2007 at 13:38

My cadmium project is proceeding rather slowly due to other responsibilities. However, I finally did dissolve the 10.5g of crude Cd that I scraped from the negative plate of a charged NiCd C cell. I used 25 mL of con nitric acid, added at room temperature. The 25 mL was a stoichiometric amount. It agressively dissolved the Cd with brown NO2 fumes profusely rolling out of the beaker (good hood required!). In retrospect I think it would have been wiser to not add all the acid but keep just a small visible residual of Cd. This would hopefully prevent ending up with excess acid. In an effort to remove all excess acid I just kept adding water and evaporating it off using a hot plate. When finished there was a small puddle of faintly green liquid. I don't know where the green color came from. A test for nickel using DMG was negative.

Cd(NO3)2 is deliquescent so I never expected to see any crystals. But after sitting for 3 days crystals did form as shown below. I assume they are Cd(NO3)2*4H2O.

[Edited on by Magpie]

[Edited on by Magpie]

Cd(NO3).jpg - 38kB

hinz - 19-4-2007 at 14:15

Are you sure that you only precipitate CdS, NiS isn't also very soluble in water, here are the solubility products:
http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/chemdata/data-ksp.htm
The cation with the lower soulubility product will precipitate first, but how did you know when NiS beginns to precipitate? I think it orks better if you scrap the crude Cd from the charged battery as you did it.
Are Cd salts also green, it's strange the nickel test was negative, maybe the concentration of Ni is too low for the test, but this green is exactly the nickel green.

You don't have to be afraid about explosions, I've never seen a NiCd battery exploding, there is rather the problem tht the battery will heat itself up so much, that you can't hold it any more and the crude Cd gets oxidised to Cd(OH)2, then you can't distinguish it any more from Ni.

Magpie - 19-4-2007 at 16:36

Hinz, what I plan to do is make my Cd(NO3)2 solution 0.3M in [H+] by adding 6N HCl. Then when the H2S is bubbled through the solution the [S--] will never get high enough to precipitate out any Analytical Group III cations, which includes Ni++. This is because of equilibrium conditions for

H2S ---> <---- HS- + H+

HS- -----> <---- S-- + H+


This is the principle of separating Gp II and Gp III cations, as I understand it.

Magpie - 20-4-2007 at 13:52

Today I made CdS by bubbling H2S through a cadmium nitrate/chloride solution 0.3 molar in H+. Precipitating the CdS was easy enough, and generating the H2S was easy enough. The tricky part is doing it safely. I have read elsewhere on this forum that H2S is just as deadly as HCN.

The apparatus I used is shown below. I placed 5.6g of Na2S in the 250mL suction flask with 5N H2SO4 placed in the sep funnel above it. The reaction bottle is the yellow one in the middle containing the original Cd soln and the formed CdS. The last bottle contains 100mL of ~10% NaOH to absorb excess H2S. I did this in my hood (which is very efficient) and added the H2SO4 a drop at a time. This instantly generated H2S a few bubbles at a time. With my hood fan on I never smelled any H2S in the lab or outside.

The most H2S I smelled was when cleaning up the glassware even though I was careful to displace all vessel freeboard with water before removing any vessel from the hood.

I noted that some free sulfur was also formed in the tube leading into the reaction vessel and in the reaction vessel. I'm assuming that the small amount of HNO3 present oxidized some of the H2S.

H2S generator.jpg - 53kB

not_important - 20-4-2007 at 16:10

Nice job there.

You're still likely to get a little bit of nickel tagging along, if there is much in what you originally dissolved.

dimethylglyoxime forms complexes with other metals besides nickel, the nickel complex is both highly coloured and of low solubility in water. It may be that the high concentration of cadmium prevented formation of the nickel complex. That pale green colour sure looks like nickel or Fe(II).

Magpie - 21-4-2007 at 18:25

I filtered, washed, and dried the yellow CdS, which was of very fine particle size. I dissolved 3.4g of this in an excess of 6N HNO3. I did this by heating it on a stirrer-hotplate. It was very interesting to watch. At first nothing happened. Then as it got near boiling, all the S-- was suddenly oxidized to elemental sulfur. It came floating to the top in one big blob. I removed this blob and washed it. In size and consistency it very much resembles chewing gum.

I continued to boil down the Cd nitrate solution to evaporate off the excess HNO3. So what should be left is Cd(NO3)2 again. As you can see there is no green tint this time. The sulfur blob is also shown.

sulfur.jpg - 45kB

Magpie - 22-4-2007 at 10:40

I hope my posts here aren't getting monotonous but I find the changes Cd takes with the different anions fascinating. Below is a picture of the Cd(OH)2 formed from the Cd(NO3)2 according to method III in Brauer. Soon I will take this to CdSO4, then to the final goal of CdI2.

Cd(OH)2.jpg - 44kB

Magpie - 24-4-2007 at 12:30

The Cd(OH)2 from above was washed and caught on a Buchner filter paper. This was then dissolved in a stoichiometric amount of dilute H2SO4. Then a stoichiometric amount of KI was added and this was dried in an oven. The dried salts were leached with warm absolute ethanol. This was filtered, saving the filtrate. The filtrate was then dried in an oven to remove the ethanol. The remaining crystals of CdI2 are shown in the attached photo.

CdI2.jpg - 39kB

not_important - 24-4-2007 at 16:16

Looks a little off colour, especially given the hydroxide being so white. Air oxidation releasing a little I2 ?

Magpie - 24-4-2007 at 18:03

That could be. It was interesting that when it was being dried it seemed to go from white to light brown and back.

For color of CdI2

1. Brauer says "Colorless, lustrous, hexagonal leaflets; stable in air."

2. Lange's 10th revised ed (1952) says "brn., hex."

3. CRC 49th ed (1969) says "grn-yel powd"

It does have specks of luster as noted by Brauer.

dapper - 18-5-2007 at 05:28

Beautiful setup Magpie, Nice and Clean. Nice product!
Do you have any posts detailing construction of your bench/hood?

Magpie - 18-5-2007 at 09:25

See this thread: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=4777&a...

If you have any questions I'll be glad to try and answer them. But please ask them in that thread. (This thread is for batteries ;).)

vulture - 19-5-2007 at 04:54

Quote:

Air oxidation releasing a little I2 ?


Washing with KI could easily prove/disprove this hypothesis.

dapper - 7-7-2008 at 08:56

sorry to dig up old (very cool) threads
just wanted to mention a source of real vermillion HgS artists pigments
http://www.greenandstone.com/v2/p/PAC.php?c=11

UnintentionalChaos - 8-7-2008 at 12:36

Quote:
Originally posted by vulture
Quote:

Air oxidation releasing a little I2 ?


Washing with KI could easily prove/disprove this hypothesis.


Or with a little heptane (or similar hydrocarbon), which'll take on a purple tint if it is I2. DCM, Chloroform, and tet would probably also work, but no need to bring chlorine containing compounds anywhere near the iodide just in case.

Also, where do you see real vermillion paints dapper? I can't seem to find it. I know a lot of companies do sell "vermillion" paints which are not vermillion at all. At any rate, I have some old tubes of Winsor and Newton real vermillion oil paint...maybe 30 years old. In lead tubes no less...still unopened and usable. The paint is probably worth quite a bit more than the mercury I could possibly extract from it.

JohnWW - 8-7-2008 at 15:33

What substitutes for HgS could they use in "vermilion" artists' paints? I would think either ZnCrO4, PbCrO4, Pb3O4, or bright red azo dyes (e.g. Para Red, Methyl Red, Congo Red). Anhydrous finely divided hematite, Fe2O3, may also do, but may be the wrong shade of red.

[Edited on 9-7-08 by JohnWW]

not_important - 8-7-2008 at 17:07

Quote:
Originally posted by UnintentionalChaos

Also, where do you see real vermillion paints dapper? I can't seem to find it. I know a lot of companies do sell "vermillion" paints which are not vermillion at all....


http://naturalpigments.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=450-15S&...

Complete with "WARNING! CONTAINS MERCURIC SULFIDE."

http://www.iconofile.com/storefront.asp?page=Cinnabar

UnintentionalChaos - 8-7-2008 at 17:10

Oh sorry...nevermind :cool:

Panache - 11-9-2008 at 19:46

I just purchased a litre of 10% Cadmium Sulphate solution (plus a blue dye i assume as its light blue) sold as a car conditioner. I remembered this thread thats why i bought it but there's nothing to do with cadium sulfate now that i reread it, although one can electroplate with the solution apparently.
Oh well no bother, i'll cleanup the solution into the salt and make it part of the collection. Interestingly the bottle has a poisons warning on it but i can't seem to find Cd dangers other than the carcinogenic ones, does anyone know any of it's acute toxicities?

not_important - 11-9-2008 at 20:14

searched using cadmium toxicity acute


http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/cadmium/cdacute_effects.html


parent page : http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/cadmium/cdacute_effects.html

Panache - 12-9-2008 at 01:11

omg there's a disease called 'metal fume fever'.

blogfast25 - 29-7-2009 at 10:12

Wanting "to do something" with Cadmium, I stumbled onto this excellent thread, so if no one minds I'll revive it.

Firstly I want to comment on Magpie's excellent method of separating Cd2+ and Ni2+, by means of sulfide solubility difference, by putting a bit of math beef on these bones.

The solubility constants for CdS and NiS respectively are 8.0 x E-27 and 3.0 x E-19.

The acid dissociation constants for H2S are:

[H3O+]x[HS-]/[H2S] = 1 x E-7 (K1)

and [H3O+]x[S2-]/[HS-] = 6.4 x E-16 (K2)

From this page http://www.telusplanet.net/public/jcarroll/ION.HTM can be gleaned that the solubility of H2S in water is about 0.1 M, remarkably independent of pH (apart of course for very high pHs).

Magpie adjusted the solution to 0.3 M HCl, thus [H3O+] ≈ 0.3 M.

Since as the dissociation of H2S in acid conditions is completely negligible, both [H2S] ≈ 0.1 M and [H3O+] ≈ 0.3 M are very good approximations.

Now isolate [HS-] from K1 and insert it in into K2, then isolate for [S2-]:

[S2-] ≈ K1 x K2 x ([H2S] / [H3O+]^2)

or in Magpie's conditions, [S2-] ≈ K1 x K2 = 6 x E-23 (pretty low, huh!)

Assume for argument's sake that prior to saturation with H2S, [Cd2+] ≈ [Ni2+] ≈ 0.1 M, then it's clear that [Cd2+]x[S2-] far exceeds the solubility constant of 8.0 x E-27 (by a factor of about 10,000) but that [Ni2+]x[S2-] is much lower than the solubility constant of 3.0 E-19 (by about the same factor of 10,000). The separation of Cd and Ni by this method must thus be very near complete.

I'm guessing (w/o peeking) that Cu2+ would precipitate with Cd2+ but not for instance ZnS.

I'm hoping in the next few weeks to make some high purity Cadmium metal by electrolysis of molten anhydrous CdCl2. I haven't decided to start from spent batteries or from commercial CdS yet...



[Edited on 29-7-2009 by blogfast25]

UnintentionalChaos - 29-7-2009 at 16:29

Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25  
Wanting "to do something" with Cadmium, I stumbled onto this excellent thread, so if no one minds I'll revive it.

Firstly I want to comment on Magpie's excellent method of separating Cd2+ and Ni2+, by means of sulfide solubility difference, by putting a bit of math beef on these bones.

The solubility constants for CdS and NiS respectively are 8.0 x E-27 and 3.0 x E-19.

The acid dissociation constants for H2S are:

[H3O+]x[HS-]/[H2S] = 1 x E-7 (K1)

and [H3O+]x[S2-]/[HS-] = 6.4 x E-16 (K2)

From this page http://www.telusplanet.net/public/jcarroll/ION.HTM can be gleaned that the solubility of H2S in water is about 0.1 M, remarkably independent of pH (apart of course for very high pHs).

Magpie adjusted the solution to 0.3 M HCl, thus [H3O+] ≈ 0.3 M.

Since as the dissociation of H2S in acid conditions is completely negligible, both [H2S] ≈ 0.1 M and [H3O+] ≈ 0.3 M are very good approximations.

Now isolate [HS-] from K1 and insert it in into K2, then isolate for [S2-]:

[S2-] ≈ K1 x K2 x ([H2S] / [H3O+]^2)

or in Magpie's conditions, [S2-] ≈ K1 x K2 = 6 x E-23 (pretty low, huh!)

Assume for argument's sake that prior to saturation with H2S, [Cd2+] ≈ [Ni2+] ≈ 0.1 M, then it's clear that [Cd2+]x[S2-] far exceeds the solubility constant of 8.0 x E-27 (by a factor of about 10,000) but that [Ni2+]x[S2-] is much lower than the solubility constant of 3.0 E-19 (by about the same factor of 10,000). The separation of Cd and Ni by this method must thus be very near complete.

I'm guessing (w/o peeking) that Cu2+ would precipitate with Cd2+ but not for instance ZnS.

I'm hoping in the next few weeks to make some high purity Cadmium metal by electrolysis of molten anhydrous CdCl2. I haven't decided to start from spent batteries or from commercial CdS yet...



[Edited on 29-7-2009 by blogfast25]


I hope that you have extremely good ventilation. Molten metal chlorides may not be as volatile as your everyday solvents, but they do vaporize and especially with something as nasty as CdCl2, I wouldn't want to be around them much.

Is this a project for the sake of a project, or do you need the Cd for something? If the latter, I advise you simply purchase some, as it only costs about $10-$15 US per pound (99.9%) and is significantly less hazardous.

blogfast25 - 30-7-2009 at 05:21

Few things are more satisfactory than a piece of homemade element, if possible from scraps lying around the house, as a 'backyard project', IMHO. And this method should yield nice, fused lump metal.

I applied the same method to produce some high purity lead, using a closed electrolytic cell to siphon off the chlorine, over 30 years ago.

With such a closed cell for CdCl2, the main danger is overheating it, as the boiling point of Cadmium is a mere 767°C (lead = 1749°C). Running the cell temperature close to the melting point of the CdCl2 (564°C) will be necessary to keep vapour pressure of the liquid Cadmium low.

not_important - 30-7-2009 at 05:58

At that temperature the vapour pressure of CdCl2 is around 10 mm Hg, and that of elemental cadmium around 40 mm.

I'd go for aqueous electrolytic, unless you feel real good about how closed the closed cell is.

blogfast25 - 30-7-2009 at 06:15

Quote: Originally posted by not_important  
At that temperature the vapour pressure of CdCl2 is around 10 mm Hg, and that of elemental cadmium around 40 mm.




Very interesting... how did you work those numbers out? The vapour pressure of various molten salts is of interest to me for another project...

In particular the relationship between pressure and temperature of a molten but pressurised salt is what I'm looking for. That is the liquid-vapour two phase part of a (p, V, T) diagram.

[Edited on 30-7-2009 by blogfast25]

not_important - 30-7-2009 at 06:58

From scanned-in tables, may have been from CRC which has boiling points of a number of organic and inorganic substances at several pressures.

For what you're looking for, if no one here can suggest a starting point, you'll need good Google-fu to get a smallish number of candidate publications. For pressurised cases I suspect nuclear energy research is likely the best resource.

metal fume fever'

wg48 - 15-1-2016 at 04:15

Quote: Originally posted by Panache  
omg there's a disease called 'metal fume fever'.


I was surprised too. I had been playing with a tig welder (actually a modified plasma cutter). I used some Zinc plated steel to practice, but did not bother to remove the zinc as per the usual suggestions/warnings for welding Zinc plated steel. I assumed Zinc being relatively harmless compared to say lead or cadmium I did not need to be concerned. I did notice the white fumes of zinc oxide given off by the steel even after the welding as the steel cooled down.

I developed what I assumed was flu, shivering and feeling lousy a few hours after the welding. I thought it was odd that it happened after welding the zinc plated steel. With a web search I discovered metal fume fever. So that was probably the cause of my shivering and feeling lousy.

Apparently the fever is caused by a reaction in your lungs to the zinc/oxide dust at levels much below that which would normally be considered poisonous.

I am much more careful now not to inhale any fumes from welding zinc or none zinc plated or anything.