jug of selenium toner on table tips over = what a disaster

hortense · Feb 6, 2005

Selenium Poisoning

Sean Somehow my message did not get posted (this has happen before)? So, heres what I said:

It is my understanding that it is the actual Se powder that is left after the solution evaporates that is VERY toxic. If I am correct, the fumes should not be harmful regarding Se poisoning. To be safe contact you New Zealand Poison Center (see below):

NATIONAL POISONS CENTRE
Dunedin School of Medicine
PO Box 913
Dunedin, New Zealand

Emergency Phone: 0800 POISONS (from NZ only) or 0800 764-766

Administrative Phone: 64-3-479-7248

FAX: 64-3-477-0509

Website: http://www.toxinz.com
or
Dead Link Removed

Bob McColloch (aka Hortense)

Bob F. · Feb 6, 2005

hortense said:
Sean Somehow my message did not get posted (this has happen before)? So, heres what I said:

Bob McColloch (aka Hortense)

Oh yes they did . Is it possible you are hitting the BACK button to reload the thread after posting? Sometimes a browser does not refresh the page and simply reloads a cached version of the page as it was when you last viewed it. This is a function of the browser: usually either it is not set to check pages every time they are accessed, or quite often it is a side effect of a very large cache, in which case clear the cache. Hit the reload button (or F5) to make sure.

Of course, all this may be totally irrelevant and the sever was just slow to update for some reason...

Cheers, Bob.

VoidoidRamone · Feb 6, 2005

Maybe I'm mistaken, but this weekend my brother bought one of those new energy drinks (I don't know the brand) and on the nutrition facts it said that the drink contained 25% of your daily selenium. Is this a different "kind" of selenium? If it was poison I don't think it'd be in a drink.
-Grant

Aggie · Feb 6, 2005

VoidoidRamone said:
Maybe I'm mistaken, but this weekend my brother bought one of those new energy drinks (I don't know the brand) and on the nutrition facts it said that the drink contained 25% of your daily selenium. Is this a different "kind" of selenium? If it was poison I don't think it'd be in a drink.
-Grant

It's the same thing. Check it out! Selnium is one of the trace mineral we do not get enough of.

removed account4 · Feb 6, 2005

i have the feeling the amount that might be in sean's darkroom is way more than the minute amount needed for a "daily dose" ... unless of course you happened to be small, white, with wiskers, and a tail

hortense · Feb 6, 2005

For toxicity guidance see:
http://www.aidsmap.com/en/docs/3E23470B-C8EF-40E5-AE3E-C63AA1AC0722.asp

Aggie · Feb 7, 2005

lets see for a guy the guidelines are a minimun of 70 micrograms to max of 400 micrograms. Now correct me but isn't 400 micrograms equal to 4 mg. If that is the case, the 1:15 working solution had less than that in it. It's late and I do not have my chem book near.

Ole · Feb 7, 2005

No Aggie, 400 micrograms is 0.4 mg. A factor of ten can make a difference.

KenM · Feb 7, 2005

Aggie said:
It's the same thing. Check it out! Selnium is one of the trace mineral we do not get enough of.

Yes, Se is something we need in our diet. However, do NOT confuse dietary selenium with the selenium in toner. While they are both Se, it's pretty difficult to inhale a tablet into your lungs; once the liquid from KRST evaporate, you're left with Se dust which can be, depending on purity, extremely toxic.

Donald Qualls · Feb 7, 2005

Aggie said:
It's the same thing. Check it out! Selnium is one of the trace mineral we do not get enough of.

Yes, it's the same selenium.

However, check the labeling on a supplement that contains it -- the Recommended Daily Allowance for selenium (for adults, presumably based on something like 70 kg body mass) is 67 micrograms. As little as two or three times the RDA can be significantly toxic. And 67 micrograms of elemental selenium is a speck that would be almost invisible to the naked eye in a good light (even if your eyes are younger than mine and still accommodate for close vision easily).

In the Northwestern USA, Washington state, there's a wildflower called "Camas" that native Americans used as a winter food stock -- the root stores starch, similar to a potato (only much smaller). Problem is, the very same species is poisonous in some locations, and not in others -- the natives knew which meadows had which kind, but the white settlers didn't, and occasionally ate some of the "Death Camas" by mistake (the flowers, white on the safe plants and purple on the deadly ones, aren't visible in winter when the roots are dug for food). The difference? The purple ones are colored by selenium they've concentrated from the soil where it's available...

Kirk Keyes · Feb 7, 2005

KenM said:
Yes, Se is something we need in our diet. However, do NOT confuse dietary selenium with the selenium in toner. While they are both Se, it's pretty difficult to inhale a tablet into your lungs; once the liquid from KRST evaporate, you're left with Se dust which can be, depending on purity, extremely toxic.

Yes, and don't confuse Selenium in toner with sodium selenite - the actual compound that the selenium is in, in the toner. None the less, sodium selenite is pretty toxic orally - around 5 mg sodium selenite per kg of subject body weight for rats, mouse, and rabbit was a lethal dose in 50% of the test subjects. Assuming the same toxicity for people, that would be about .3 g total oral dose for a 70 kg human... So don't ingest any. See http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/s4946.htm for more info.

But the trick to cleaning up this spill is to keep the work area wet - use a mop and wash the area thoroughly several times. If you see any residue when it starts to dry, wash it again several times.

I would not use Aggie's suggestion to wash the area with acetic acid - a simple wash with lots of fresh water should suffice. After the area has dried, if you are still concerned, seal off the area of the spill by repainting the area or replacing the flooring, but that may not need to done with a thorough water wash.

You should probably wash your shoes and the clothing that you were wearing while cleaning up the spill, to remove any contamination from them. After all, why clean up the spill on the floor and then track it back into the house, where you actually live...

Aggie · Feb 7, 2005

Donald Qualls said:
Yes, it's the same selenium.

However, check the labeling on a supplement that contains it -- the Recommended Daily Allowance for selenium (for adults, presumably based on something like 70 kg body mass) is 67 micrograms. As little as two or three times the RDA can be significantly toxic. And 67 micrograms of elemental selenium is a speck that would be almost invisible to the naked eye in a good light (even if your eyes are younger than mine and still accommodate for close vision easily).

In the Northwestern USA, Washington state, there's a wildflower called "Camas" that native Americans used as a winter food stock -- the root stores starch, similar to a potato (only much smaller). Problem is, the very same species is poisonous in some locations, and not in others -- the natives knew which meadows had which kind, but the white settlers didn't, and occasionally ate some of the "Death Camas" by mistake (the flowers, white on the safe plants and purple on the deadly ones, aren't visible in winter when the roots are dug for food). The difference? The purple ones are colored by selenium they've concentrated from the soil where it's available...

Go to the toxicity link provided above, ^0 micrograms for women and 70 for men MINIMUM amount per day. Max if you read further is 400 Micrograms.

also Ken I understand the difference between the powdered and the pressed pill. I also knw he washed it up thus any that had dried, was again rewet. Any amounts that would remain after he washed up the mess, would be so infintesimal as to not be a bother. Especially if he used a good soap to help wash it with. We all need to take precautions, but I see too many who worry about minimal risks as if they were about to destroy the person and the planet. Caution yes, paranoia no.

DKT · Feb 7, 2005

something similar happened at work a month or two ago--had an old kodak one gallon glass jug of brown toner, crack open unexpectedly--very neat too, a tiny little chunk popped out like a piece of a puzzle-- that oozed out onto the floor and then under the tiles, smelling pretty much like a backed up sewer. took us almost all day to clean up and we had to rip up the floor tiles as well, and hose the area down. used up a gazzillion towels, had to throw away the mops, and all sorts of other stuff that was on the floor that the toner had screwed up. had to take a shelving unit outside and hose it down. real mess--had to wear smocks, gloves, goggles...one of the guys had to pretty much trash his shoes. it took about a day or two to get the lingering odor gone.

I'm not trying to say don't worry about it, but.....well, accidents happen. In retrospect, it would be better to try to absorb the chemistry with kitty litter or a pig-a-log or something than to wet mop it up. But, now that it's dry, I would just mop the hell out of the area and then throw out the mop head and all the cleaning stuff that was in contact with it.

oh well, good luck detoxifying the site....

KenM · Feb 7, 2005

Aggie said:
also Ken I understand the difference between the powdered and the pressed pill. I also knw he washed it up thus any that had dried, was again rewet. Any amounts that would remain after he washed up the mess, would be so infintesimal as to not be a bother. Especially if he used a good soap to help wash it with. We all need to take precautions, but I see too many who worry about minimal risks as if they were about to destroy the person and the planet. Caution yes, paranoia no.

Paranoia? I was advocating care when cleaning it up. The facts are that selenium is toxic, especially in powder form - I just wanted Sean to be aware that the dust can be dangerous.

But, this thread is starting to degrade - we've all made our points, and I'm sure Sean has already cleaned up his darkroom, and is sitting there watching this with a rather bemused look on his face. There's pretty much no sense taking this one any further.

Fini.

jug of selenium toner on table tips over = what a disaster

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