ABS fume toxicity?
Who should I trust?
Best Answer by Thejiral:
I am not an expert but active carbon is the the only technology for VOC removal I know which is feasible in home usage. A lot of the home use active carbon filters sold in the hobbyist segment are not really effective though. Active carbon has a certain binding capacity and as it binds VOCs its effectiveness decrases until it is largely saturated. That means it needs to be exchanged regularily. The only economical way to do that is by using active carbon pellets. There you need to buy the right ones though, active carbon pellets specifically for air purification. Have a look at the github page of the Nevermore system. Even if you don't build a Nevermore the readme gives you some useful information on the topic. https://github.com/nevermore3d/Nevermore_Micro#about-the-nevermore-micro
No, those ultrafine particles are extremely light. They might settle in a perfectly static atmosphere over a very long time but I doubt that is any option for filtration. For the ultrafine particles they are even moving quite chaotically due to Brownian Motion. Which is also why a lot of those particles is caught by HEPA filters even though they would be much smaller than the pore size. I don't know about HVAC filtes. They might work for those ultra-fine particles too to some extend.
The superior solution beating all of that for sure however is if you are venting directly to the outside.
RE:
I think literature is not that extensive on the actual threat from ABS fumes generated by home FDM printing. It certainly also depends on the extend of the exposure. If you stack up 10 printers, printing ABS day and night an an unventilated 10m2 room in which you sit the whole day in front of your PC, the exposure is an entirely different one from having an enclosed printer in a well ventilated room no one is in for most of the day, printing something once a week.
I could find a small study on rats from 2020: Farcas et al. (2020)
They found minimal pulmonary and systemic toxicity in rats after up to 30 days 4h daily exposure. That is not no toxicity but a low level of it.
I find it interesting that they highlight that it is not just the VOCs, people I think underestimate the emission of ultrafine particles by FDM printers. I am not sure there is a feasible solution against those. The paper reports a size of 85 nm on average. That is way below the cutoff of common HEPA filters. Still, having a HEPA filter certainly won't hurt. Very small particle can also deposit due to electrostatic forces etc when passing a filter witch much larger pore size.
Mk3s MMU2s, Voron 0.1, Voron 2.4
RE: ABS fume toxicity?
EDIT: It seems Brownian Motion plays a central role of capturing of particles smaller than 100 nm. So HEPA filters might not be so bad after all regarding those particles. I don't have acadamic research on this though. In any case, I have an active carbon filter similar to the known "Nevermore" filter for Vorons and a HEPA filter in my printer.
Mk3s MMU2s, Voron 0.1, Voron 2.4
RE: ABS fume toxicity?
Is active carbon a good choice for removing VOCs. Also are those particles heavier or lighter than air? If they sink, then we can have much easier time by letting them settle. What about the house HVAC filter, how good are those filters.
RE:
I am not an expert but active carbon is the the only technology for VOC removal I know which is feasible in home usage. A lot of the home use active carbon filters sold in the hobbyist segment are not really effective though. Active carbon has a certain binding capacity and as it binds VOCs its effectiveness decrases until it is largely saturated. That means it needs to be exchanged regularily. The only economical way to do that is by using active carbon pellets. There you need to buy the right ones though, active carbon pellets specifically for air purification. Have a look at the github page of the Nevermore system. Even if you don't build a Nevermore the readme gives you some useful information on the topic. https://github.com/nevermore3d/Nevermore_Micro#about-the-nevermore-micro
No, those ultrafine particles are extremely light. They might settle in a perfectly static atmosphere over a very long time but I doubt that is any option for filtration. For the ultrafine particles they are even moving quite chaotically due to Brownian Motion. Which is also why a lot of those particles is caught by HEPA filters even though they would be much smaller than the pore size. I don't know about HVAC filtes. They might work for those ultra-fine particles too to some extend.
The superior solution beating all of that for sure however is if you are venting directly to the outside.
Mk3s MMU2s, Voron 0.1, Voron 2.4