Is thermal paste toxic?

Is thermal paste dangerous?

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Accidentally smeared thermal paste all over your hands after a CPU application gone wrong? No worries; it happens to the best of us. But now, maybe you’re worried that the thermal paste you’ve just come into direct contact with is toxic.

Is there a reason to be concerned?

Well, to find out whether or not thermal paste is toxic, we need to take a look at what it’s made up of.

What is thermal paste made up of?

Based on the situation you’re in, you probably already know what thermal paste is and what it does. Still, to bring everyone up to speed, thermal paste is a thick liquid paste that’s spread between a CPU’s IHS (Integrated heat spreader) and the heatsink of its cooling solution.

The purpose of this paste is to fill in microscopic gaps between the two surfaces to allow for more efficient heat transfer. To do that, thermal paste has to be good at conducting heat itself.

Therefore, it’s made up of metal oxides, which are excellent thermal conductors. In your average thermal paste, you’d find compounds such as aluminum oxide, boron nitride, zinc oxide, and the like.

While those compounds certainly don’t sound like they’re the safest thing in the world to come into physical contact with, you’re safe. They aren’t very dangerous at all, especially in the low quantities used in thermal paste.

Exposure to human skin is perfectly safe. You can simply wash the thermal paste off and not have to think about it ever again.

If thermal paste were indeed toxic to humans, the manufacturers and distributors would have to make that extremely clear to not end up in all sorts of trouble.

Probably the bigger problem, if you got thermal paste all over your hands, is that you may not have been following the best practices during the application process.

Poorly applied thermal paste can lead to higher-than-average temperatures, especially during CPU-intensive workloads such as gaming, so that’s something you might want to re-examine. Here’s how to correctly apply thermal paste.

Overheating shortens component lifespan and, if severe enough, can cause thermal throttling, which will put a hamper on your CPU’s processing speed.

Do I need to be worried if I ate thermal paste?

While metal oxides are safe to handle when you have a thick layer of skin protecting you, they’re more dangerous when ingested or consumed.

It’s difficult to end up in a scenario where you accidentally end up eating thermal paste. You may get some on your finger or under your nails during a standard application. And then, you could later on end up ingesting it by licking your finger or biting your nail.

However, the amount ingested would be so minimal in such a scenario you probably don’t have anything to worry about here either. Even when consumed, the metal oxides used in thermal paste need to be present in a high concentration to cause non-negligible harm.

Unless you ate more than a pea-sized amount, you’ll likely be fine.

This should go without saying, but if you feel dizzy, weak, develop abdominal or chest pain, or any other signs of ailment at all, get in touch with your general practitioner immediately.

While it’s extremely unlikely for you to get a case of metal poisoning from consuming thermal paste (especially in the amount you’re likely to consume by accident), it’s better to be safe than sorry.