Could carbon fiber be the new asbestos?

Can carbon fiber cause the same damage to the human body as asbestos? This is the question that arises now. [Nathan] He found himself struggling with After taking a look When carbon fiber-reinforced threads are examined under a microscope, we discover a scene reminiscent of fibrous asbestos samples. Given the horrific effects that exposure to asbestos can have, this is a perfectly appropriate question. Fortunately, scientific studies have already been conducted on the subject.

while [Nathan] Studies have shown that the tiny carbon fibers found in some FDM filaments like to stick to your skin and stay there even after repeated hand washing. What makes asbestos dangerous is that the mineral fibers can be easily inhaled due to their size. It is this property that allows asbestos fibers to get deep into the lungs, where they penetrate cell membranes and cause persistent inflammation, DNA damage, and oftentimes lung cancer or worse.

It is clear that CF filaments with a size of 0.5 to 1 mm in FDM filaments are not easily inhaled, but as shown by [Jing Wang] and his colleagues in 2017 Journal of Nano Biotechnology paperCF can be easily shattered into smaller, sharper fragments by mechanical processes (cutting, sanding, etc.) which Can Damaged carbon fibers, whether CFRP or other CFRP-containing materials, pose a potential health hazard. This is not unlike asbestos—which poses no risk when stable in place, but can create clouds of inhalable fibers when disturbed. When handling CFRP-containing materials, especially for processing, wearing an effective respirator (at least N95/P2) rated to filter out asbestos fibers thus seems a wise precaution.

The downside of asbestos and Ken is that diseases like lung cancer and mesothelioma are not immediately noticeable after exposure to asbestos, but can take decades to develop. In the case of mesothelioma, it can take 15 to 30 years after exposure to asbestos, so protecting yourself today with a good respirator is the only way you can be relatively certain that you won’t be cursing your confident younger self by then.