• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.96-101
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• 2019

Chemicals Control Act have been strengthened to control more safely hazardous chemicals from 2015. In particular, the standards for the installation and management of handling facilities was enhanced with specific regulations depending on type of the facilities and the hazardous chemicals. However, some standards for handling facilities caused difficulties in implementing the strengthened standards due to various field conditions, such as lack of physical space. The Ministry of Environment is implementing Safety Assessment System (SAS) to solve these problems since 2018. However, many plants have difficulties in preparing alternative methods to pass the safety evaluation. The purpose of this study was to review and analyze the SAS and to suggest alternative measures in terms of management and technical aspects through the case study of hydrochloric acid storage tanks. The following safety solutions were suggested for handling facilities that had insufficient the space and capacity for the retaining wall due to physical space. Firstly, insufficient space was resolved by introducing equipment relocation or demolition, and retaining wall expansion. Secondly, the wall of the surrounding buildings was used as an alternative to the retaining wall with additional chemical resistant treatment. Finally, sensor installation and facility inspection were suggested as ways to improve chemical safety. Therefore, improvement of chemical accident prevention system is required not only in terms of facilities supplementation but also management aspect. The results of this study are expected to be available for similar facilities and will be based on the preparation of additional safety assessment as alternatives measures in the future.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.293-301
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• 2024

Purpose: Ministry of Environment statistics reveals more than 132 fire·explosion accidents in South Korea between 2014 and 2023. Among them, fire and/or explosion accidents are very impactive in their scale and consequence. This study aims to suggest a new method of reasonable way to calculate the ventilation rate of indoor facility handling hazardous chemicals based on their inflammability. Method: A new method to calculate the ventilation rate is based on the physicochemical properties of the chemicals handled, which is more reasonable compared with the current regulation based only on the floor area of the facility. Result: Considering the physicochemical properties, 178 chemicals based on their inflammability were studied and 168(94%) met the criteria for the current regulation. Some materials have been shown to require too much or too little ventilation rate. Conclusion: Through this study, a reasonable method of calculating the required ventilation rate was proposed. This should be applied to ensure the safety of workers to deal chemicals.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.129-131
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• 2003

Recombinant bioluminescent bacteria and cultured human cells were applied for toxicogenomic analysis of environmentally hazardous chemicals. Recombinant bioluminescent biosensing cells were used to detect and classify the toxicity caused by various chemicals. Classification of toxicity was realized based upon the chemicals' mode of action using DNA-, oxidative-, protein, and membrane-damage sensitive strains. As well, a simple double-layered cell culture system using Caco-2 cells and Hep G2 cells, which mimic the metabolic processes occurring in humans, such as adsorption through the small intestine and biotransformationin both the small intestine and the liver, was developed to investigate the toxicity of hazardous materials to humans. For a more in-depth analysis, a DNA microarray was used to study the transcriptional responses of Caco-2 and Hep G2 cells to benzo〔a〕pyrene.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.139-152
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• 2009

According to the third study on the distribution of chemical substances carried out by the Department of Environment in 2006, there were a total of 900 chemical substances whose respective annual usage amount exceeded 1,000 tons and, among them, 90 substances belonged to the 168 hazardous substances requiring management(53.6%). The work-related illnesses caused by hazardous substances requiring management in Korea between $1992{\sim}2005$ can be classified into four groups depending on the type of the chemical substances. These four groups are 23 organic substances including benzene, 12 metals including lead, 3 acids and bases including hydrogen chloride, and 6 gaseous substances including carbon monoxide. These hazardous substances requiring management were again classified depending on the threshold limit values. The chemicals whose TLV was lower than or equal to 0.005 ppm included 4 organic substances including methylene bisphenyl isocyanate and toluene-2,4-diisocyanate (TDI). The chemicals whose TLV was larger than 51 ppm included 22 organic substances including diethyl ether and 1,2-dichloroethylene. When we classified these hazardous substances requiring management according to the categories of GHS health hazards, we found that isobutyl acetate and magnesium oxide didn't belong to the 13 health hazard categories. Among the substances whose TLV is set and whose annual usage amount is more than 0.1 million ton, we recommended 12 chemical species including 4,4'-Methylenedianiline as new hazardous substances requiring management. All the recommended substances were found to be hazardous when we classified their health hazards.

• Korean Journal of Hazardous Materials
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.13-22
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• 2018

Recently, social crimes using chemicals at home and abroad are increasing. These chemicals are readily available in the internet. Therefore, the NICS(national institute of chemical safety) runs a 'Chemical Cyber Surveillance' to help the public take control of the internet and create a healthy cyberspace through voluntary participation of the public. The study analyzed more than 1,000 sites suspected illegal hazardous information or blocked among cyber surveillance 3,500 case reports in the past yeas. And, the number of illegal hazardous information reported in the past three years is analyzed by type and substance. They want to examine the characteristics of hazardous chemical information on the internet and use it as a basic data to establish illegal information management measures that spread over cyberspace.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.156-161
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• 2020

Waterborne pressure sensitive adhesives (PSA) has been received much attentions from both academia and industries as an environmental friendly-technology because it can significantly reduce use of hazardous organic volatile solvents. However, in the process of the mass production of waterborne PSAs, hazardous phenol type amphiphilic compounds have essentially been used as surfactants for the emulsion polymerization. For the reason, tremendous research efforts have been made to develop environment-friendly organic surfactant which can replace the phenol type surfactants. In this study, we verify the potential of a new class of surfactants based on the styrenated phenol derivatives as an alternative to the phenol type surfactants.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.711-716
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• 2012

Based on both organic synthesis and theoretical calculations on the effects of molecular orbital energy levels of amines on the fluorescence properties of the fluorophore, fluorescent "turn-on" chemosensors detecting hazardous substances, including aldehyde chemicals and $Hg^{2+}$ ion, were developed.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.44-54
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• 2018

Objectives: To protect individuals working at the site as well as the surrounding general population from a chemical accident, several emergency exposure guidance levels have been used to set a level of concern for certain chemicals. However, a level of concern has not been established for many substances that are frequently used or produced in large quantities in Korean workplaces. In the present study, we investigated the guidance levels for protecting populations from chemical exposure and the estimation of level of concern using acute inhalation and oral toxicity data. Methods: The number of chemicals to which emergency exposure guidance levels (e.g., ERPG-2, AEGL-2, PAC-2, and IDLH) can be applied were determined among 822 hazardous chemicals according to the 'Technical Guidelines for the Selection of Accident Scenarios (revised December 2016)'. The ERPG and AEGL values were compared across all three tiers for the 31 substances that appeared on both lists. We examined the degree of difference between the emergency exposure guidance levels and the estimates of level of concern calculated from acute inhalation or acute oral toxicity data. Results: Among the 822 hazardous chemicals, emergency exposure guidance levels can be applied to 359 substances, suggesting that the estimates of level of concern should be calculated using acute toxicity data for 56.3% of the hazardous chemicals. When comparing the concordance rates of ERPG and AEGL for 31 substances, the difference between the two criteria was generally small. However, about 40% of the substances have values diverging by more than three-fold in at least one tier. Such discrepancies may cause interpretation and communication problems in risk management. The emergency exposure guidance levels were similar to the estimates of level of concern calculated using acute inhalation toxicity data, but the differences were significant when using acute oral toxicity data. These results indicate that the level of concern derived from acute oral toxicity data may be insufficient to protect the population in some cases. Conclusion: Our study suggests that the development of standardized guidance values for emergency chemical exposure in the Korean population should be encouraged. It is also necessary to analyze acute toxicity data and fill the information gaps for substances that are important in Korean workplace situations.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.276-283
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• 2008

To provide the research strategy for protection of children's health from hazardous chemical, we reviewed the hazardous chemicals can be exposed through maternity, children's life style and living environment. Recently, diseases related with children's living condition were focused as asthma, atopy, childhood developmental disability, congenital malformations and obesity. Children can be exposed to hazardous chemicals through an ambient air, water, soil, food, toys and other factors such as floor dust. Also children's health was deeply related with a wrong life style and neglectful caring by a lack of knowledge and information of harmful ones at parents and child care center's nursers. According to the previous study, the chemical risk factor of children's health were identified as inorganic arsenic, bisphenol A, 2,4-D, dichlorvos, methylmercury, PCBs, pesticide, phthalates, PFOA/PFOS, vinyl chloride, et al. Domestic studies for identification of causality between children exposure to chemicals and resulted hazardous effects were not implemented. The confirmation of chemical risk factors through simultaneously performing toxicological analysis, human effect study, environmental/human monitoring, and risk assessment is needed for good risk management. And also, inter-agency collaboration and sharing information can support confirming scientific evidence and good decision making.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.97-104
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• 2019

Behind the growth of the chemical industry which is a cornerstone of the Korean economy, dozens of hazardous and noxious chemical accidents occur every year, resulting in enormous casualties and environmental damages. Many cases among chemical accidents are caused by the carelessness of workers in handling facilities such as hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid, and the aging of handling facilities. In order to mitigate the damage by such chemical accidents, a safety system for preventing atmospheric diffusion of hazardous and xoxious chemicals in dike was proposed. The atmospheric diffusion prevention safety system consists of leak detection phase, alarm and measurement phase, suppression and blocking phase. Through the proposed the atmospheric diffusion prevention safety system, the need for 2nd chemical accident prevention such as atmospheric diffusion in dike can be posed.