How do you know a material contains PVC or not

[Eugene han]

I just bought a laser and am waiting for the training. I have not start using it yet. I know you can not use PVC. Howver, some materials contains PVC which are hard to tell. How can we know which material contains PVC and which might not contain PVC? Especially for the plastic stuffes. Any tips and tricks?
Eugene

[Dave Jones]

I was reading yeaterday on a new forum called laserists that there is a test called the Beilstein test.

Apparently if you take a piece of copper wire and repeatedly heat it over a bunsen burner and wipe it with distilled water to burn off any impurities it will then not change the color of the flame (it may be greenish at first before fully clean). Once it is at that state you can heat it and touch it to some plastic to get a bit of the plastic stuck to the wire. Then put that in the flame. Chlorine will combine with the copper and make a green flame. Other plastics without chlorine supposedly won't.

I have no idea if this really works, and of course it would have to be done in the proper environment since the fumes can be deadly. The person at that forum located the info somewhere but I don't think has tried it yet. I'd really be curious if the test works and truely doesn't turn green with any other types of plastic.

[Joe Pelonio]

For unknown materials I rely on the manufacturer's MSDS, most are available online. If no manufacturer is known then best not to use it.

PVC is Poly Vinyl Chloride so the words vinyl and chloride are clues when present in any plastic.

[Mike Null]

A Bunsen burner---I haven't heard that term in over 50 years--are they still around?