What are the hazards of artificial stone

Many people now like to use natural marble for home decoration because of its good quality, beautiful appearance and long service life. However, many unscrupulous merchants now use artificial stone with questionable quality and falsely claim it is natural marble in order to make profits and reduce costs. However, this kind of artificial marble is actually very harmful. If used for a long time, it will cause irreparable damage to people's bodies. The following article will tell you about the dangers of artificial marble.

Artificial stone refers to a building decoration material that is formed by pressing unsaturated polyester resin as a binder and inorganic materials such as quartz sand, ore powder or glass powder as fillers.

Artificial stone technology originated in the 1960s. In 1965, the United States first used artificial stone as a building decoration material. The aggregates used in artificial stone are crushed and processed from natural stone, with no tailings and a high comprehensive utilization rate of minerals. Compared with natural stone, artificial stone has the advantages of bright color, high gloss, uniform color, compression and wear resistance, good toughness, dense structure, durability, light specific gravity, non-water absorption, erosion and weathering resistance, small color difference, no fading, and low radioactivity.

The artificial stone industry has the advantage of comprehensive resource utilization, plays an inestimable role in energy conservation and environmental protection, and is also a veritable green and environmentally friendly building material product. It is now widely used in various countertops (reception counters, cabinet counters, bathroom countertops, etc.), building decoration materials (floors, walls, decorations, etc.), furniture and artworks, etc.

The artificial stone industry has gone through nearly half a century since its birth. During this half century, artificial stone technology has made great progress and accumulated rich technical resources. Whether in terms of the raw materials, auxiliary materials, formulas, adhesives, patterns, varieties, specifications, scientific research, maturity of production technology, etc. of artificial stone, we have a solid foundation. At present, the process of mixing and dispersing powder and resin, material distribution, mechanical pressing and molding, curing treatment after heating, cutting, grinding and polishing have all been realized in automated assembly line production. The equipment is mature, the process design is further reasonable, the labor intensity is reduced, and the product quality and performance are stable.

my country is a major country in the production and market application of artificial stone. On the one hand, high-performance, high-quality, non-toxic products are exported in large quantities to Europe, the United States and other parts of the world. On the other hand, the domestic application market is also growing, and demand is increasing significantly. According to incomplete statistics from the Resin Association, the annual production of unsaturated polyester resins used in the artificial stone industry alone reaches about 700,000 tons.

While developing rapidly, the industry management, industrial management, and quality standards of supporting suppliers of artificial stone are relatively lagging behind, which inevitably brings some problems that need to be solved urgently. The main problems faced by the industry are mainly in the following aspects:

1. The technical and quality standards of the products of various artificial stone manufacturers are not unified, and the country has not introduced corresponding standards to regulate the development of the industry, resulting in chaotic market order and is not conducive to the sustainable and healthy development of the industry.

2. The performance and quality of artificial stone production equipment available on the market vary greatly, and the production equipment manufacturers are mixed, making it difficult to guarantee the quality and performance of the stone. This has opened the door for low-quality, low-priced artificial stone products to be dumped, affecting the market image of artificial stone and endangering the normal development of the industry.

3. Industry management is extensive, making it difficult to effectively promote the standardized development of the industry.

In view of the existence of the above problems, in the artificial stone industry, there are still some stone manufacturers with backward production equipment, old presses, uneven pressure, poor pressing effect, and they are still using the outdated and obsolete room temperature curing process. The artificial stone production of these enterprises is inefficient and of poor quality. In order to survive, they did not transform their production equipment or adjust their backward production processes. They used inferior resins or even resins with toxic and harmful solvents added, and used inappropriate means to improve dispersion effects and reduce production costs at the expense of product performance and harm the environment. They put low-priced, low-quality stone products on the market, engaged in vicious competition, and sought expansion. These improper practices are coordinated and even promoted by some unscrupulous resin companies.

These problems are quite serious. If not handled properly, they may even bring disaster to the entire industry.

The unsaturated polyester resin used as bonding material uses styrene or methyl methacrylate as a cross-linking agent during the curing reaction to participate in the cross-linking chemical reaction, ensuring that the cured resin reaches a sufficient cross-linking point density and forms a densely cross-linked polymer three-dimensional network, allowing the resin to be fully cured, so that the product can achieve the designed physical and mechanical strength and bonding effect. The cross-linking agent in the resin participates in the cross-linking reaction, leaving only a very small amount of residue, which meets the US and EU hazardous substance residue standards and is non-toxic and harmless.

In order to reduce costs and make illegal profits, some unsaturated resin manufacturers now add solvents that do not participate in cross-linking chemical reactions, such as ethylene dichloride, chloroform, dimethyl carbonate, toluene, xylene, methanol, ethanol, or other modified and compounded mixed solvents to the unsaturated resins they produce and sell. These solvents do not participate in the cross-linking chemical reaction of the resin. As solvent monomers, most of them evaporate into the operating environment and the atmosphere during the production process of artificial stone. Some of them remain in the artificial stone products and are slowly released over a long period of time, which is extremely harmful.

Toxicity of some solvents:

1. Toluene and xylene: flammable and explosive, irritating to the skin and mucous membranes, anesthetic to the central nervous system, causing vomiting, and may also cause bloody pneumonia. Acute poisoning: Inhalation of high concentrations of this product in a short period of time may cause obvious irritation symptoms to the eyes and upper respiratory tract, conjunctival and pharyngeal congestion, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, chest tightness, limb weakness, staggering gait, and confusion. Severe cases may experience agitation, convulsions, and coma.

Chronic poisoning: Long-term exposure may cause neurasthenia syndrome, hepatomegaly, menstrual abnormalities in female workers, etc. Dry skin, chapped skin, dermatitis. Induce cancer.

2. Chloroform: Mainly acts on the central nervous system, has an anesthetic effect, and is harmful to the heart, liver, and kidneys. Acute poisoning: Inhalation or absorption through the skin causes acute poisoning. The initial symptoms include headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, excitement, hot and wet skin, and mucous membrane irritation. Later, the patient will develop mental disorder, shallow breathing, loss of reflexes, coma, etc. In severe cases, respiratory paralysis and ventricular fibrillation may occur. It may also be accompanied by liver and kidney damage. It is a suspected carcinogen and is irritating.

3. Methanol: Poisoning symptoms include dizziness, headache, fatigue, blurred vision and insomnia. In severe cases, delirium, confusion, coma, and even death. Both eyes may experience pain, diplopia, and even blindness. Fundus examination shows retinal congestion and hemorrhage, optic disc paleness, and optic nerve atrophy. There is increased methanol and formic acid in the blood. Some individuals have liver and kidney damage and reduced carbon dioxide binding capacity. Blood gas analysis shows changes in indicators such as decreased pH, reduced SB, and increased negative BE values. Chronic poisoning may result in decreased vision, visual field loss, optic nerve atrophy, as well as neurasthenia syndrome and autonomic dysfunction.

Adding solvents to the resin partially replaces styrene and methyl methacrylate, which reduces the cost of the resin and helps improve the dispersion of the resin and aggregate. However, its stone products will inevitably have toxic residues, which will directly poison users, especially kitchen and dining table panels. Long-term contact between the human body and food will cause greater hidden and latent hazards.

Hazards caused by non-cross-linking solvents:

1. Due to the decrease in cross-linking density, the final physical and mechanical properties of the product are changed, and the strength, hardness, smoothness, stain resistance and weather resistance of the product are reduced.

2. The volatilization of solvents directly endangers the health of workers and the workshop environment.

3. Greatly increase VOCs emissions, harm the atmosphere, cause environmental pollution and increase management costs.

4. It leads to confusion in resin prices and disorderly and vicious competition.

Most stone manufacturers do not have the inspection and testing equipment and capabilities to identify whether the resin contains toxic solvents, which gives some unscrupulous resin factories an opportunity to take advantage. Many artificial stone companies have been deceived and victimized, using resins with toxic solvents added for a long time. Product performance cannot be guaranteed, employees suffer unnecessary occupational health damage, and toxic products are mistakenly put on the market, endangering the health of users. Enterprises are walking blindly on the brink of danger without realizing the seriousness of the problem, and their business operations are fraught with crisis.

For artificial stone export products, since foreign countries have very strict standards and requirements for the non-toxic substances and residues of products and raw materials and strictly inspect the finished products, harmful products are basically prevented from entering the country.

However, the domestic market lacks corresponding standards and finished product inspections, lacks credibility, and is a mixed bag of good and bad products. Ultimately, it harms the environment, users and even the entire industrial chain.