You have confused steam with small water droplets, akin to what emerges from an ultrasonic mister. If it were steam, you would be shrieking and then dead.
But it's still water, and it's still moving up and about of its own accord in the local air which is the point. That it isn't technically steam doesn't disprove the point the person you're responding to is trying to make…
The commenter's point isn't that the lead has technically been boiled, it's that, if we analogize to "steam" in a shower, I don't have to reach water's boiling point before I'm breathing in water. Does that translate to lead: i.e., even if I'm below lead's boiling point, could I be nonetheless breathing in lead vapor, or something like that? (I don't know the answer here, which would push me towards lead-free solder. I.e., I don't know if the precautions I'd take with lead would actually suffice.)
That's the reason I was being persnickety and "science-y" about terms: analogies can lead you astray. You don't know the answer here, and so your options are: 1) do some experiments, 2) reason by science, not analogy.
I have some weightlifting plates. Pure iron. Can I forego iron in my diet and just ... sit next to them? Now, by analogy, sure. Practically? Probably not.
Here's one for you: what do you think happens if you drank a glass of pure liquid mercury?
Most people think you'd die on the spot. Wrong! That mercury hasn't sublimated into mercury vapor. Instead, it barrels through your alimentary canal like a shot and was used to treat constipation, of all things. It is poorly absorbed by digestion and just runs right through you.
No, soldering doesn't send streams of liquid solder through the air. And if an occasional drip of solder does splash, it is so heavy, and has so much surface tension, that it doesn't go far and doesn't stay in the air like water droplets do.
I thought everyone did the experiment of leaving a saucer of water out and seeing it evaporates over time, despite being significantly lower than 100c.
And "Steam" is wooly term for high enough density of water vapor that you see condensation - often caused by higher temperatures in the majority of cases people experience it in day to day life. So it doesn't really have a precise definition. At what temperature point does "mist" become "steam?" What %age of the volume of air needs to be water vapor? If you lowered the pressure water "boils" at a lower temperature - is that still steam?
We solder at 200°, which is 1500° below the boiling point and 23% of it. You shower at probably 40°, which is 60° below the boiling point and 84% of it. Because vapor pressure is typically an exponential function of temperature the absolute difference (1500°) is the more important measure here. If you were showering at -1500° you would have a point, but absolute zero is only -273.15°, so you can't.
Great. If we follow this line, standing next to a roll of solder is just as dangerous. No need to fire up the iron.
If lead was so easily dissolved into air, wouldn't we have had massive issues in electronics factories? I don't recall ever reading such a thing ( as opposed to painters madness for example ). Not a native speaker, probably doesn't translate too well.
"Results showed that the mean PbB concentration of the exposed workers (6.12 +4.61 µg/dl) was significantly higher than that of the unexposed workers (4.63+3.91 µg/dl ) (z = 4.96; p = 0.001). There was a significant association between the blood lead concentrations with the exposure to lead (2 = 437.72; p = 0.001)." (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271077842_Occupatio...)
"Epidemiological and experimental studies indicate that chronic exposure resulting in blood lead levels (BLL) as low as 10 µg/dL in adults are associated with impaired kidney function, high blood pressure, nervous system and neurobehavioral effects, cognitive dysfunction later in life, and subtle cognitive effects attributed to prenatal exposure. Pregnant women need to be especially concerned with reducing BLL since this can have serious impact on the developing fetus." (https://www.osha.gov/lead/health-effects)
