Safety
Since gas dusters are one of the many inhalants that can be easily abused, many manufacturers have added a bittering agent to deter people from inhaling the product. Because of the generic name "canned air", some people mistakenly believe that the can only contains normal air or contains a less harmful substance such as nitrous oxide. However, the gases actually used are denser than air, and inhaling can lead to paralysis, serious injury or death. Recently in the United States and Canada, stores have begun to ask for ID to verify that the customer is 18 years or older.
Though not extremely flammable in gaseous form, many dusters use a fluorocarbon which can burn under some conditions. As such, there is also a warning label present on some gas dusters. When inverted to spray liquid, the boiling fluorocarbon aerosol is easily ignitable, producing a very large blast of flame and extremely toxic byproducts such as hydrogen fluoride and carbonyl fluoride as a combustion product.
Fluorocarbons, although they replaced the older set of more flammable hydrocarbons, can still combust relatively easily, e.g., by holding a source of fire (such as a match or lighter) to the escaping fluid. They do, however, have a lower chance of exploding in a closed container by means of spontaneous combustion.
The liquid, when released from the can, boils at a very low temperature, rapidly cooling any surface it touches. This can cause frostbite on contact with skin. As the can gets very cold during extended use, holding the can itself can result in frostbite.
Since gas dusters are often contained in pressure vessels, they are considered explosively volatile.
Read more about this topic: Gas Duster
Famous quotes containing the word safety:
“The safety of the republic being the supreme law, and Texas having offered us the key to the safety of our country from all foreign intrigues and diplomacy, I say accept the key ... and bolt the door at once.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“Once women begin to question the inevitability of their subordination and to reject the conventions formerly associated with it, they can no longer retreat to the safety of those conventions. The woman who rejects the stereotype of feminine weakness and dependence can no longer find much comfort in the cliché that all men are beasts. She has no choice except to believe, on the contrary, that men are human beings, and she finds it hard to forgive them when they act like animals.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)
“Can we not teach children, even as we protect them from victimization, that for them to become victimizers constitutes the greatest peril of all, specifically the sacrifice—physical or psychological—of the well-being of other people? And that destroying the life or safety of other people, through teasing, bullying, hitting or otherwise, “putting them down,” is as destructive to themselves as to their victims.”
—Lewis P. Lipsitt (20th century)