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How to Identify Polymers with Burnination

By: hoeken
August 28th, 2008

Confirmed: Moleskine notebooks contain PVC or other chlorinated plastics. Do not laser cut them for your safety and the safety of your laser cutter.

Adam brought his laptop in to etch today. As we all know, laser cutting PVC is bad and releases chlorine gas (which is corrosive and bad for you and your machine.) Adam’s laptop was made of an unknown polymer, and we wanted to make sure we didn’t damage our new lazzzor. Luckily, there is an easy way to determine if a plastic is okay to etch. Watch the video below, and check out this guide to polymer identification for full details. There is actually a suite of tests you use to determine the type of plastic, but the burning one is the most fun, as well as the one that detects chlorine. Enjoy!


Polymer Identification by Burnination from Zach 'Iowa' Hoeken on Vimeo.

Comments
  • phooky
    Oh god. That's... that's really what my voice sounds like, isn't it.

    I'm going to laser-etch my trachea next.
  • Oh yeah, I hear yah; it's always disturbing to see/hear yourself (though I suppose you can get used to it with practice).

    I see myself in pics or video and I'm always, omg, what dork!
  • Oh yeah, Chlorine; for extra credit in junior high science class, I made a quart jar of chlorine. My teacher, clearly, was an idiot.

    When I aired it out after class, a huge mistake, I ended up with the most amazing headache.
  • Dave
    If Chlorine is bad, Fluorine should also be bad. Thus, you probably shouldn't burn/laser-etch Teflon:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroeth...

    But, the question is, what will the flame test response be for Fluorine?
  • winnie
    i love you, phooky. you are the awesome.
  • phooky
    PTFE appears to be reasonably safe. Fluorine is so electronegative I doubt our puny laser can pry it from whatever it's currently bound to.
  • Richard
    Never burn PTFE, it's fumes are cacinogenic, maybe fluorine?
  • Seth Morabito
    Phooky, you're famous! And to think I knew you when you were a NOBODY.
  • Arthur
    here's the chemistry basis... the copper ions from the solid copper wire combines with the freed up chloride (in the burnt plastic) to form copper chloride... which burns green:

    http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/jcesoft/cca/cca2/M...
  • Arthur
    also remember that a propane torch releases CO (ie: carbon monoxide) which is poisonous. If you get a headache while burning "safe non-PVC's", it could be because of the CO.
  • Darin
    thanks for putting this up, as a pipefitter/welder, I'm all the time put in positions where things around me get burned up, now I can at least test some of them to know what I should absolutely have removed before I get at what I'm working on directly. The air I breathe sometimes is bad enough, I certainly don't need chlorine too.
  • GREAT info on keeping us from being dead! We'll use this flame test here at TechShop to be sure no one kills us all in a cloud of Chlorine gas with one of our 2 laser cutters!

    THANKS!
    Lynne.
  • Ernie
    Hi.
    How much would it cost to perform a burn test of some heavy cardboard? I need to determine the degree of scorching it will suffer if I use it to laser cut a design.

    Thanks
    Ernie
  • shiiitt??
    whoa whoa whoa wait i got these lighters from beijing that are shaped like olympic torches that light green fire....shit? or is something else causing green fire?
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