Pressurised airduster

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Pressurised airnear me

I keep seeing posts where people recommend using "compressed air" to clean computers and I've been wanting to point something out but the discussions get closed quickly (for rule 13, not because of the discussion of canned air).

The propellant is a chemical that is not particularly dangerous to humans (if used correctly). When in the can it is in liquid form, and when let out of the can the decompression makes it a gas. The escaping of gas via the nozzle sets up an air current that draws in surrounding air, and thus most of the gas hitting your electronic components will literally just be air, encouraged by that initial movement of the propellant gas as it escaped the nozzle. It's a similar physical principle to the way those dyson fans work.

Compressedaircan

Edit: some people are criticizing because they already knew this. If you already know this, that's fine, move on. Some people don't.

"Compressed air" is a marketing term for these products. If they literally did contain only air that is under pressure, they would probably last only one or two squirts. What they actually contain is a propellant substance - just like similar cans that contain deodorant, paint, etc. Except that these "canned air" products don't contain any paint or deodorant, only the propellant.

Planning on building a computer but need some advice? This is the place to ask! /r/buildapc is a community-driven subreddit dedicated to custom PC assembly. Anyone is welcome to seek the input of our helpful community as they piece together their desktop.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that if you care about what you are releasing into the air, you may have been mislead by the way these are named. Indeed, the propellant used in them is considerably less damaging to the atmosphere than propellants commonly in use 50 years ago, but it is still not without harm, so it's worth knowing about.