Experiments concerning the elimination of Cd and As through vacuum evaporation from antifriction Sn - based alloys

Abstract

The chemical composition of antifriction Sn based alloys contains Cd and As as alloying elements which improve the mechanical and tribological properties of these alloys. Research conducted in the field of medicine and ecology have, however, highlighted the fact that Cd and As are harmful for the human health as they generate cancer. Therefore the aim of the present paper is to introduce a method that in the authors’ opinion manages to eliminate these two elements successfully. Several methods of eliminating Cd and As have been tested by the authors and the best method has proven to be the vacuum elimination. This method is based on the fact that out of the elements that make up the antifriction alloys (Cu, Ni, Ca, Pb, Zn, Al, etc.), Cd and As have the lowest boiling and respectively sublimation temperatures. These low values lead implicitly to higher pressure values