Are filtered solder fumes safe?

Question

I am soldering using lead-free solder for about 1 hour a day with a solder fume extractor that has a carbon filter that looks like the image below. The place of soldering is in a building with commercial-grade ventilation, but without the ability to open windows.

This source claims solder fumes to consist of 95% particulates and 5% gases, while this other source claims 99.5% particulates and 0.5% gases.

Considering the effectiveness of the carbon filter, the possible composition of the fumes, and location, would this setup be considered safe?

Answer 1

That "filter" doesn't really do anything. The fan however disperses the fumes, which are then ideally vented out by the HVAC system without reaching harmful levels. How safe that is depends on how much air exchange you have and the volume of fumes you're generating.

Edit: I'm surprised this is controversial, but those "charcoal filters" are worthless at removing particulates, which are the primary component in solder fumes. Take a look at the particle size that will fit through them:

Those millimeter-wide gaps are literally thousands of times too large to remove the sub-micron particulates generated by soldering. Activated carbon is more helpful at removing gases, but again, the surface area is negligible and most gases will pass through without ever encountering any surface at all because the filter is simply too thin. If you have one of these, you are depending on the HVAC system to exchange fumes for fresh air. There is a whole EEVBlog episode going over this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffaiKZMU0Lw

This isn't just my opinion either. Here is a quote from a study evaluating activated carbon foam filters for solder fume extraction:

Activated carbon filters in the form of foams, used with the simpler type of cleaner, had negligible filtration efficiency against either particulates or vapours and would, therefore, offer no protection against any hazardous component of the fume.

Measurement of the Performance of Air Cleaners Against the Particulate Element of Rosin-based Solder Flux Fume

If you can't get access to that ventilation and are going to be generating any serious fumes, then you need a HEPA filter. Otherwise you're just blowing the same particulates in a circle and then breathing them in.

Those generic HEPA filters Dave Jones talks about in the EEVblog videos are relatively inexpensive and they're generally effective (will remove smoke and the order of burning flux from a room), can actually remove particulates, and the filters are interchangeable if you want to buy a name-brand or certified replacement filter rather then trust the generic parts. If you can't work in a well ventilated space, they (at a minimum if not something better) are worthwhile.

Answer 2

I use one of those, and the ONLY benefit is that it keeps the fumes and resin plume from rising up into my nose & mouth whilst soldering.

I realize the OP doesn't have this option, but for other readers: I run a 4-inch PVC flexible dust/woodworking tube from the vent to the closest window.

(Image from Amazon, "Ultra-Flex-Clear-Vue-PVC-Hose")

Answer 3

That solder fume extractor not only does not perform any filtering of particulates, but it also doesn't perform any filtering of dangerous VOC. It is not possible to compare particulate & gas pollutants by mass, as their mechanism of toxicity is different.

In order to capture any significant amount of dangerous gasses, you need a significant mass of activated charcoal to adsorb the chemicals, as well as to change the filter as it becomes saturated.

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Disclaimer: I'm not an occupational health specialist or a chemist. I expect my calculations to be correct within about an order of magnitude, and no more.

To calculate exactly how dangerous the gases are, here is one of my soldering sessions. I'm indoors, and I have a HEPA filter but no significant VOC filtration, and my readings are from a SGP30 VOC sensor and a PMS7003 particle sensor:

I start my soldering session at 8:35 PM, and finish up and open a window at 8:52 PM. Ambient air quality was pretty crummy to start with, but my soldering caused the VOCs in the air to climb from 12ppm to 38ppm.

It's unclear what exactly the chemical compounds that make up soldering fumes are, and it depends heavily on the exact type of flux. An Investigation Into The Composition of Solder Fume suggests that about 26% of fumes are some sort of aldehyde. These aldehydes are split about 50:50 between formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. With these rough numbers, and the (IMO, likely too permissive) occupational limits:

┌──────────────┬────────────────────┬────────────┬──────────────────┐
│   compound   │ est. concentration │ 8-hr limit │ short-term limit │
├──────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼──────────────────┤
│ formaldehyde │ 3 ppm              │ 0.75 ppm   │ 2 ppm            │
│ acetaldehyde │ 3 ppm              │ 25 ppm     │ 25 ppm           │
└──────────────┴────────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────────┘

My soldering task exposed me to unsafe amounts of formaldehyde. My exposure was likely dramatically higher because I was next to the work while the sensor was in the middle of the room.

I was also exposed to a wide variety of other chemicals, but the health effects of these chemicals are not well studied or regulated.

Answer 4

In this case, "Safe" is speculative. If you want an absolute level of safety, you want a fume hood or extractor(Could be built into a window with PC fans I would note similar to a drop in air conditioning unit). Carbon filter units like that are the next best option for when a proper extractor is not an option. You would have to specifically analyse the unit in question(how often carbon sheets are changed, quality, total thickness, air flow rate per area) to know exactly what made it through the filter.

As far as different distributions of particulate and gas, there are different alloys of solder and types of flux and soldering temperatures that could account for the distribution, so both of your sources are probably right. If an extractor isn't an option for you and you don't fully trust your engineered unit, it's a very simple device that would be very easy to overbuild. Add a hepa filter, increase carbon filter quality/thickness, make it easy to change and use high static pressure fans to compensate for the additional restriction. How much there was to gain from this would depend on the original engineering, but it's an easy and cheap project.