PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Toxic cabin air is more poisonous than reckoned
Old 19th Apr 2009, 19:59
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nicolai
 
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Made me wonder if the exhaust fumes produced by two stroke engines (petrol/oil mixture) contain TCP's?
That's a good question. I have always considered fresh motor engine oils to be "mostly harmless". A grovel round the Googleweb found me the Material Safety Data Sheets for Mobil and Shell's 2-stroke oils, as some examples. I can't say I went and found the MSDS for every 2-stroke oil out there. For some examples, Shell's data is here.

All the 2-stroke oils I found MSDS for claimed they were of low toxicity and particularly didn't mention TCP, phosphates, or neurotoxicity like the MSDS for some jet turbine oils. So I reckon they're fairly safe from the ingredients point of view.

As mentioned in some of the MSDS, combustion products from the engine are a different matter: Engine exhaust gases, especially from 2-stroke engines, may contain carbon monoxide, fine particulate soot, a veritable galaxy of interesting aromatic (and non-aromatic) hydrocarbons of varying toxicity, etc, etc. Used engine oil also is contaminated with a lot of such things. Motor fuel (especially petrol) has all sorts of things you don't want to get in you, like benzene, MBTE, etc. So I wouldn't hold my face in front of a 2-stroke exhaust any more than a 4-stroke or a jet turbine exhaust, but I don't think the 2-stroke is being deliberately loaded up with any neurotoxins.
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