Handling cadmium plated parts

A. Hi Nagi. Most chromate conversion coatings are proprietary; some are hexavalent and some are trivalent, so you need the MSDS for the particular Alodine (Macdermid), Chromicoat (Chemetall), Iridite (Henkel), or other chromate conversion coating that is being applied.

The rule of thumb is that chromate conversion coating is only good for 140 °F, but this might be exceeded for well-aged coatings, trivalent coatings, or coatings covered by powder coating.

Regards,

A. Hi Steve. Quantifying the possible hazards of handling cadmium & chromates (cadmium plated parts are virtually always chromated) is pretty much impossible. The answer is simply that employees should wear gloves. Good luck.

Regards,

Thanks for that. I will see that they are doing that. Steve

Hi Cesar. Some jewelry is still cadmium, although hopefully fully covered/plated with something else. I doubt that there are any cadmium plated truck rims.

But moving on, cadmium is neither "safe", nor is it plutonium; it's relative. Should you touch a cadmium plated bolt (with bare skin)? No you should not. Would I touch it on a $1 bet? Certainly; easiest buck I can make. Would I sandpaper it? No, don't spread the dust around.

Most cadmium plated bolts -- and most zinc plated bolts as well -- also have hexavalent chromate conversion coatings on them, and hexavalent chromate is another toxin. I think the answer is that very occasional casual contact is probably fairly harmless, but you should be wearing gloves if regularly handling them. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Monica. I respectfully feel that the assumptions should be challenged, i.e., that those employees should wear gloves.

It's 2016 and dentists wear latex or similar gloves even when doing precision work like a root canal, restaurant servers wear them, coin collectors wear them, nurses in hospitals wear them, and most plating shop employees wear them. While my personal opinion is that there isn't much real danger in casual touching of cadmium parts (just a couple of years ago China was exporting children's jewelry to the USA which was up to 70% cadmium), issues like this really shouldn't be considered matters of personal opinion. As a former governor of New Jersey once remarked, "toxic" is a matter of statute, not opinion.

I say don't let paranoia drive your personal life, but since cadmium is considered a hazardous material, don't touch it with bare skin as part of regular work duties.

Regards,

A. Hi Ryan.

- Time was when cadmium plated muffler hardware was torched off; I don't know if there were ever any studies of muffler shop personnel.
- Time was when refrigerator shelves were cadmium plated; it became an issue only when the fridge was scrapped and people used the shelves as barbecue grates.
- Time was when cadmium vs. zinc plated hardware was selected indiscriminately.

Don't expect consistency because after decades of the EPA harassing plating shops for 1 part per million of cadmium in the wastewater going to a sewerage treatment plants, very recently the consumer product safety commission simply refused to allow a big deal to be made out of solid cadmium jewelry being sold to children:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/group-finds-toxic-cadmium-in-adult-jewelry/
https://web.archive.org/web/20150405101933/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/14/cadmium-in-jewelry_n_1965192.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=45&v=MH26dS0RxnQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJbtaboHsmo

My opinion is that it's probably not truly dangerous to merely touch it now & then, but if something is considered toxic, then touching it repetitively as part of daily work duty is poor practice. We'll have to see in what direction this goes over the years.

Speaking of parachute hardware, thanks for reminding me of a fondly remembered co-worker who was an army paratrooper for 20 years. He told me deadpan: "I carried a rifle every day for twenty years ..." and "... I had a bullet once" :-)

Regards,