Carbon Nanotubes Could Be Toxic
 

Crap, now my wife will never let me buy that BMC Pro Machine SLC01!

http://www.informationweek.com/news/...ubSection=News

just wear a radiation suit while riding

Carbon nanotubes? So like top tube so small you can't see them? Damn that be a light bike. Where can we all get one?

I've heard before to be careful not to inhale the sawdust off of carbon steerer tubes, as they are carcinogens. Really, I just avoided the stuff the way I'd have avoided metal dust from alloy steerers. I'll be more careful in the future.

In the meantime, do you think I need to worry about the five or six carbon steerers I've cut in the past?

I wouldn't worry about it. The epoxy resin used in carbon fiber bikes is way more toxic as dust than carbon nanotubes.

:O

Maybe?

Anything tiny is a lung irritant. As users, this is a non-issue.

And if you build furniture in your garage, walnut dust is particularly hazardous as well.

Note to self: Don't grind up a carbon frame and inhale it.

That's why I never file my pro machine

You take the fun out of everything.

umm yea, but the bike isn't made of just a ball of CNT's. They are impregnated into the epoxy to add strength to the matrix (think of the CFRP with CNT's as a composite inside a composite) They aren't getting loose any time soon. The only person that has to worry about the toxicity is the person loading up the machine that mixes the CNT's into the epoxy.

Studies have shown that the human skin is actually a great blocker of CNT's except at the folds in the skins (like the back of elbows and knees.)

If you get enough of these tubules in the air they can cause an explosion.

So, even as sawdust they're bonded to the epoxy?

at that point you're going to be inhaling the toxic epoxy dust

Don't breathe dust. Doesn't matter what the dust is.

So it's not enough that it already explodes.

Now it'll explode in your lungs.