Precautions
Water soluble compounds of yttrium are considered mildly toxic, while its insoluble compounds are non-toxic. In experiments on animals, yttrium and its compounds caused lung and liver damage, though toxicity varies with different yttrium compounds. In rats, inhalation of yttrium citrate caused pulmonary edema and dyspnea, while inhalation of yttrium chloride caused liver edema, pleural effusions, and pulmonary hyperemia.
Exposure to yttrium compounds in humans may cause lung disease. Workers exposed to airborne yttrium europium vanadate dust experienced mild eye, skin, and upper respiratory tract irritation—though this may have been caused by the vanadium content rather than the yttrium. Acute exposure to yttrium compounds can cause shortness of breath, coughing, chest pain, and cyanosis. NIOSH recommends a time-weighted average limit of 1 mg/m3 and an IDLH of 500 mg/m3. Yttrium dust is flammable.
Read more about this topic: Yttrium Compounds
Famous quotes containing the word precautions:
“A multitude of little superfluous precautions engender here a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himself with an air of importance and a rigorous precision, which seemed to say, though everything is done with much silence, “Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state.””
—Marquis De Custine (1790–1857)
“It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace and safety, which all the great powers habitually observe and enforce in matters affecting them, that a shorter water way between our eastern and western seaboards should be dominated by any European government, that we may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be entertained by any friendly power.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“We must take precautions against being prematurely honed sharp—since at the same time we are being prematurely honed thin.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)