There was an incident in our shop this morning involving a 200 gallon tank of 35% hydrochloric Acid that spilled. The spill mixed with rain water which resulted in a vapor cloud that wafted through the shop. Ever so fortunately, the plant was immediately evacuated and no one was hurt. Two people were medically checked due to fume inhalation and cleared.
The acid concentration in the fume is confirmed by the fact that all unpainted carbon steel that it came into contact with is noticeably flash rusting.
My questions are:
1. Would you consider the affected materials safe to weld on, or would the already toxic weld fume generated be worsened?
2. The acid is used as a pretreatment in our E-coat priming process. Would this pretreatment clean off the flash rust from the carbon steel, or will the E-cat and resulting top coat suffer from the flash - rust?
3. How concerned should we be about our electronics, welding and robotic equipment?
I realize these are open questions that will lead to a lot of supposition.
I'm mostly wondering if anyone has been in this position before and what was learned from the experience?
Thanks,
Tim Gary
Tim,
As you know, that stuff starts rusting pretty much on contact. I've heard that the surface can be neutralized with baking soda and then rinsed very well. Also, deionized or distilled water would be good for the rinse so that calcium isn't left on the surface. Deionized or distilled water is also very corrosive, so the surface would need to be dried very quickly. For optimum results this would be something to do immediately. I don't know how much good it would do at this point, since it's rusting. Sorry I can't be of any further assistance.
Tim...to be blunt. What does it look like now?
153 days later.I must confess when I read the post I had some thoughts based on my experience with auto restoration and rust removel.
But not being sure I kept quiet.
However, I've been deep in playing with the stuff and will says this to the matter.
1) While vapor from welding on a chunk of metal holds the toxic element, the severity will increase when that substance is vaporized in the arc. Worsened.
2) Yes. Your pre treatment should remove this depending on severity of depth to the flash rusting. It could take some scrubbing, numerous application depending on the acidity level of the product. It should not when cleaned effect finishing operations if properly done.
3) Very concerned. Bet they rusted to scrap value quickly if they weren't properly given the clean up to help prevent the damage to acidic exposure.
I wasn't in that position. But a similar type issue called for keeping things wet till a plan could be developed to deal with the effects of the problem. Wouldn't you have looked like the crazy if you suggested to keep the water running?
So tell us, what happened?
No big problems.
The parts that flash rusted didn't hang around long before they went through the system, where our E-coat etching took care of it.
No long lasting issues.
Tim
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