Is SAN Plastic safe for co2 lasers?

[Keith Winter]

I have a customer wanting me to engrave "SAN plastic" commercial restaurant grade tumbler glasses. Are these safe to do on a laser like acrylic, or do they release poison gas like poly-carbonate?

[Dan Hintz]

I have a customer wanting me to engrave "SAN plastic" commercial restaurant grade tumbler glasses. Are these safe to do on a laser like acrylic, or do they release poison gas like poly-carbonate?

Everything releases noxious gases to one degree or another (though I wouldn't necessarily call polycarb gases "poisonous"). SAN is no more/less safe than polycarb. Perhaps you're thinking of PVC as a definite no-no?

[Richard Rumancik]

It would appear that SAN is related to ABS, in that they both contain styrene and acrylonitrile. ABS has both plus butadiene (the component that make it rubbery). A lot of people laser cut ABS although it does smell from the rubber content. My take would be to say that it is probably less toxic than cutting or marking ABS. If you are just marking as I assume, since you have an injection molded item, the amount of vaporized material would be low. With a proper exhaust system I would expect it to be okay.

I don't know how well it will mark or engrave, however. That would require experimentation. SAN hasn't really come up here as it is generally injection molded but it can be purchased in sheet for some applications.

I did not see much info on SAN but I did find this reference, which suggests it cuts and marks "easy" with a caution on engraving.

http://www.eurolaser.com/materials/styrene-acrylonitrile-san/

[Keith Winter]

Everything releases noxious gases to one degree or another (though I wouldn't necessarily call polycarb gases "poisonous"). SAN is no more/less safe than polycarb. Perhaps you're thinking of PVC as a definite no-no?

Yes definitely no PVC, I was also told at purchase some years ago no poly-carbonate. SANs is BPA free and a slightly different molecule structure. Perhaps part of the issue with poly-carb is it simply does not engrave well according to the other site posted above.

[Keith Winter]

It would appear that SAN is related to ABS, in that they both contain styrene and acrylonitrile. ABS has both plus butadiene (the component that make it rubbery). A lot of people laser cut ABS although it does smell from the rubber content. My take would be to say that it is probably less toxic than cutting or marking ABS. If you are just marking as I assume, since you have an injection molded item, the amount of vaporized material would be low. With a proper exhaust system I would expect it to be okay.

I don't know how well it will mark or engrave, however. That would require experimentation. SAN hasn't really come up here as it is generally injection molded but it can be purchased in sheet for some applications.

I did not see much info on SAN but I did find this reference, which suggests it cuts and marks "easy" with a caution on engraving.

http://www.eurolaser.com/materials/styrene-acrylonitrile-san/

Thank you! A most helpful site, it doesn't specially say yes or no, but it does give me the indication that it may engrave ok.

[Richard Rumancik]

Keith, I did not try to figure out what their definitions of "mark" and "engrave" are . . . some people use them interchangeably so there is some confusion in the industry. To me "engrave" would be material removal to a depth, "mark" could be very superficial with no depth and just a color change or frosted look, for example. So when they say it will mark ok, they are probably meaning that if you don't try to go deep you might be okay. Pure styrene does not cut all that well; it tends to melt and flow on edges so I am guessing that deep engraving would result in poor definition of characters.