Vanishingly small amounts of lead in a tank of motorbike fuel.
The stuff they put in to replace it is far more dangerous.
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13 years ago
Bloody 2-stroke engines
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13 years ago
But rather more in the bottle of the stuff the bloke was carting around with him, apparently dozens of petroleum industry workers died when they started adding TEL, before they came up with safe handing rules for it.
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13 years ago
No shit sherlock
HA ha - now there's a quote that defines you
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13 years ago
I think that was the point. TEL is highly concentrated lead source and is added to fuel at a very high ratio (i.e. less that 1L TEL for a 1000L of petrol). So contact with pure TEL very rapidly causes acute lead poisoning (to make matters worse its lipophilic and hence readily soluble fats and oils). In industry it requires special handling practices.
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13 years ago
yebut that's daily exposure to LOADS of the stuff.
What has replaced it, is arguably just as toxic, but its not such an issue in long term environmental pollution.
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13 years ago
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>>> That entirely different: Those are compression ignition engines. >
Certainly was after my typical rebuilds, and I kept a bottle of ether on ice specially for the purpose. (Yes there probably is truth in the mention of old petrol, one tends to have after a rebuild, being less keen to ignite.)
Concentrated it is very nasty:
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"Contact with concentrated TEL leads to the familiar symptoms of acute lead poisoning."
This chap kept a bottle of conc TEL in the pocket of his leathers, and dribbled it down the sides of the bottle when he added it with every petrol fill up. He would have been soaked in the stuff and consuming it with every bag of chips he bought, from what was on his fingers.
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13 years ago
If he was carrying a bottle of retail octane booster he'd be OK. The stuff is pre-diluted to a pretty low concentration.
Handling an organic lead compound, like tetraethyl lead, he, and everyone who shook hands with him for a week, would be at risk of acute lead poisoning. That stuff is fiendish. Tiny quantities are a hazard, and skin's no barrier to it.