Screen printers who are printing plastic surface such as plastic sheets, school or army badges, key rings, Plastic Posters and everything which acrylic, Plastic or polythene, they use Benzene for mixing their PVC colors and Botyle for washing their screens after printing. They (all) should be very careful while using these chemicals. On one hand these chemicals are highly inflammable and can cause a huge sudden fire anytime and on the other hand Benzene and Botyl are very harmful for human respiration at all, and this is the main motivation for me to write an article for your protection.
I hope you will consider it a serious danger for you i.e. for your health if you are professional screen printer. Benzene can cause you asthma at fist stage and at the end it will destroy your lungs completely. What is the best way to protecting yourself goodly? you should build a very good exhaust system for your screen printing workshop. If your exhaust system is not good you won’t be able to do your job for long time. I have seen many screen printers, they are now dead. They destroyed their health with carelessness and died in youth just because of the benzene and botyl or other chemicals that are highly infalmable, wikipedia writes about benzene,
“Benzene is an organic chemical compound with the molecular formula C6H6. Its molecule is composed of 6 carbon atoms joined in a ring, with 1 hydrogen atom attached to each carbon atom. Because its molecules contain only carbon and hydrogen atoms, benzene is classed as a hydrocarbon.
Benzene is a natural constituent of crude oil, and is one of the most basic petrochemicals. Benzene is an aromatic hydrocarbon and the second [n]-annulene ([6]-annulene), a cyclic hydrocarbon with a continuous pi bond. It is sometimes abbreviated Ph–H. Benzene is a colorless and highly flammable liquid with a sweet smell. It is mainly used as a precursor to heavy chemicals, such as ethylbenzene and cumene, which are produced on a billion kilogram scale. Because it has a high octane number, it is an important component of gasoline, comprising a few percent of its mass. Its carcinogenicity has limited most non-industrial applications”
How to keep yourself safe?
There, where you work i.e. your work station or workshop of screen printing should either and open place like veranda or if there is no chance to work in open area you should build a secure exhaust system. Do pipping and drive away each and every molecule from your atmosphere of breathing. You should breath fresh air if you wanna live long.
Anyway! some people use Air conditioned workshops while printing with screens. They should more than careful about the harmfulness of those hazardous chemical. They sure have to use double exhumes
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