• Title/Summary/Keyword: hazard chemicals

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Pesticide Risk and Benefit Assessment

  • Birtley, Robin D.N.
    • Korean Journal of Weed Science
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.195-202
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    • 1993
  • The benefits of pesticides in improving the food quantity and quality requirements for an increasing world population are significant, and they can be described in agronomic, economic and social terms. The risks are assessed from the hazards which are likely to occur in practice ; the hazards are defined by the toxicity of the pesticide to non-target organisms at various exposure levels. There are ways of reducing the risks (mainly by reducing exposure in practice) and improving the benefits of pesticides ; these are known as risk management and benefit management respectively. The overall risk-benefit assessment is facilitated if each component can be expressed in financial terms, but it must be made nationally or locally on a sound technical basis against the prevailing agronomic, socio-economic and political circumstances. Paraquat is used to illustrate the risk-benefit assessment process in general terms, and the conclusion is that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. It is important to keep the risks of pesticides in perspective with those associated with other naturally occurring chemicals in our diet and with other everyday aspects of life. In an overall context, the pesticide risk is small.

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Washoff Characteristics of Nonpoint pollutants in Paved Areas (포장지역내 비점오염물질의 유출특성)

  • Gil, Kyung-Ik;Wee, Seung-Kyung;Lee, Sang-Soo;Park, Moo-Jong
    • 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
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    • 2008.02a
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    • pp.779-782
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    • 2008
  • During the dry periods, many types of pollutant are accumulating on the paved surface by vehicle activities and accumulated various pollutants are inflowing to the near watershed areas for the rainfall periods. Also, the metals, toxic chemicals and sediments originated from bridges could be strongly influenced to the watershed areas during the runoff. The result shows that the EMC ranges for 95% confidence intervals in a bridge land use are $10.12\sim128.09mg/L$ for TSS, $6.07\sim21.15mg/L$ for BOD, $2.10\sim6.70mg/L$ for TN and $0.06\sim0.85mg/L$ for TP.

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A Study of Thermal Stability on Polymers and Sodium Azide Mixture by DSC (DSC에 의한 고분자물과 나트륨아지드 혼합물의 열안정성에 관한 연구)

  • 이내우;박준조
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.87-94
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    • 1997
  • If sodium azide is impinged by certain reasons, it will be produced explosives by heavy metals and toxic materials. But it is used propellent for inflating automotive safety bags and the other chemical manufacturing purpose. The investigation of thermal hazard potential of sodium azide itself and with polymers ate very important because some parts of automotives, transporting vessels of reactive chemicals and many any other constituents of structures in factories are made of polymers. The range of decomposition temperatures are about $360-380^{\circ}C$, even if it depends on heating rate and sample weight. Thermal decomposition heat of sodium azide in air is higher than in nitrogen atmosphere, because the former is included oxidizing heats of sodium metal which is made by decomposition of sodium azide to end. Especially decomposition temperature of polymers are increased on the order of bonding energy between atoms in hydrocarbon moleculars.

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A Thermal Decomposition Characteristics of Propellants for Safety Bag (에어백용 가스발생제의 열분해 특성)

  • 이내우
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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    • v.11 no.4
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    • pp.97-106
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    • 1996
  • Some of accidents are based on unstable chemical substances. These chemicals are easily decomposed or Ignited by heats or mechanical shocks like sodium azide. Sodium azide is commonly used as propellant for inflating automotive safety bags and the other chemical manufacturing purposes. The investigation of thermal hazard potential of sodium azide is very important because unexpected traffic accident can be occureed. The experiments were carried out by DSC, TG an ARC in air, oxygen, argon and nitrogen atmosphere. The decomposition temperatures were about $410^{\circ}C$~$420^{\circ}C$ by DSC and $330^{\circ}C$~$370^{\circ}C$ by ARC, this is very significant result for treatment of chemical. The heats of decomposition were about 81 kcal/mol in ai. and 10 kcal/mol in other atmosphere.

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Problems on Pesticide Safe-Use and Their Counter-Measures (농약안전사용상의 문제점과 그 대책)

  • Han Ki-Hak
    • Korean journal of applied entomology
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    • v.22 no.2 s.55
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    • pp.138-146
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    • 1983
  • With the increase of pesticide consumption, not only pesticide handling population would grow greater but also the chances to be exposed to the pesticides would be also increased. Thus, safe use and handling of the pesticides are becoming more important and serious in these days. The pesticides are well known to most pepole, however there are very limited number of persons who have correct understanding of chamicals. Intoxication cases caused by pesticides have been reported very rarely through the mess media, even they were lack of scientific evidences. In this paper, problems related to pesticide manufacture, transportation, storage, sprays, and residues and their countermeasures were discussed in connection with public health and enviromental aspects. Acute intoxication cases by pesticide handling might be caused accidently either through manufacture, marketing, transportation, or spraying. Safety aspects of workers in manufacturing plants include not only exposure to toxic chemicals, but also posibilities of of explosion and brought about by pesticides and their diluents. The problems of water pollution by waste chemicals from the manufacturing factories were discussed. Packing and loading methods of pesticides for transportation are considered in safety scheme and discussions are given in association with traffic accidents. With regard to warehouse, the pesticide storage, location structure, keepers, and standing materials for emergency are concerned with safety aspects. Concerning the spraying of chemicals, there are some problems to be discussed about clothes, spray equipment, wind direction, spray period, and spray workers condition. After the spray, treatment of used containers, remainder of Pesticides, and spray tools are also discussed. For the dissolutions of problems on public health and environmental danger arising from pesticide residues, there are two legal sanctions; 'Pesticide Tolerances' and 'Pesticide Safe Use Standards'. These regulations are legally effective, however, some problems still remain in practices to implement the acts properly, because these provisions are followed by the far mers mostly. With these regards, most problems are concerned with various sectors and persons, affecting public health and environment from the producers to the end users and consumers. As a whole persons concerned with pesticides, every possible effort has to be assembled to protect hazards from the chemicals. For the foremost place, special training and education are required for managing groups; such as factory managers and agricultural extension workers who are responsible for training the factory workers and farmers. The education is the only way to solve the hazard problems caused by the pesticides.

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Application of PSL-TL Combined Detection Method on irradiated Composite Seasoning Products and Spices (방사선 조사 복합조미식품과 향신료의 확인을 위한 PSL-TL의 적용)

  • Chung, Hyung-Wook;Park, Sung-Kug;Han, Sang-Bae;Choi, Dong-Mi;Lee, Dong-Ha
    • Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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    • v.23 no.3
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    • pp.206-211
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    • 2008
  • Photostimulated luminescence(PSL)-Thermoluminescence(TL) combined analysis was applied to detect whether composite seasoning products and spices were irradiated or not. Samples were irradiated with $^{60}Co$ at $0{\sim}7$ kGy. A total of 12 different samples(6 of composite seasoning products and 6 of spices) was examined. Depending on the PSL results, TL analysis was performed. In case of both PSL positive(${\geq}5,000$ counts) and intermediate($700{\sim}5000$ counts), TL analysis had to be performed to confirm the result of PSL. Using TL, the shape of the glow curve(Glow 1) made it possible to identify the irradiated samples. In addition, The TL glow ratio(Glow 1/Glow 2) obtained by normalization was less than 0.1 for the non-irradiated samples and ${\geq}0.29$ for irradiated ones, respectively.

Identifying Characteristics of Incidents at Hazardous Material Facilities

  • Kim, Geun-Young;Kim, Sang-Won;Won, Jai-Mu
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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    • v.9 no.6
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    • pp.51-56
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    • 2009
  • Safety and quality assessment systems are very important in manufacture, storage, transportation, and handling of hazardous materials(hazmat) to prevent hazmat disasters. At present, hazardous materials exist everywhere in our daily lives with various forms of plastics, household products of cleaning and washing detergents, fertilizers or petroleum-related products. However, hazardous materials are dangerous substances when they are released to human or environment. Hazardous materials become very widely used substances in the age of oil-based industrial economy. The Korean Ministry of Environment (KMOE) describes about one hundred thousand types of chemicals are produced and used worldwide. Over four hundred new chemicals are introduced in every year. A crucial question for the Korean hazardous material management may have been raised: Will you be safe from hazardous material incidents? The gas leak disaster at Union Carbide's Bhopal, India in 1984 that made over 6,400 people killed and 30,000 to 40,000 people seriously injured is the representative case for the safety of hazmat. Korea becomes vulnerable to hazmat disaster due to the development of high-tech industry. Thus, the risk assessment system is required to Korea for transferring abandoned hazmat management systems to self-correcting safety systems. This research analyzed characteristics of various hazmat incidents applying statistical analysis methods including frequency analysis or analysis of category data to hazmat incidents for ten years. All of three analyses of category data indicate the significance of causality between hazmat incident site groups and seasons, regional groups, and incident casualty groups.

Association Between Communication for Chemical Hazards Information and Characteristics of Occupational Safety and Health manager (산업안전보건관리자 특성과 화학물질 유해성 정보전달의 관련성)

  • Kim, Ki-Woong;Park, Jin Woo;Jeong, Mu Soo
    • Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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    • v.22 no.2
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    • pp.156-163
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    • 2012
  • Objectives: The aim of the present study was undertaken to investigate the association between communication for chemical hazard information and characteristics of occupational safety and health managers. Subjects and Methods: We surveyed 78 occupational safety and health managers(64 male and 14 female) in 78 chemical manufacturing plants. Data were obtained using a self-reported questionnaire about size and type of company, products, communication system for chemicals and work-related characteristics of occupational safety and health managers. All analyses in this study were performed using SPSS program 12.0. Results: 64.1% of the study participants were occupational health managers aged 39.3 years on average and were graduated from college and university around 90%. 30.0% and of them were majoring in chemistry (engineering chemistry), 18.0% occupational health, 16% nursing and 30.0% others. Occupational safety managers were aged 39.4 years on average, 42.9% of them were majoring in chemistry (engineering chemistry), 21.4% environmental engineering, 10.7% occupational safety and 25% others. 86% of occupational health managers and 71.4% of occupational safety managers were classified as office job. Over 94% of the hazards information for chemicals were delivered by occupational safety and health managers, but about 28.2% workers preferred outside experts who have a profound knowledge about occupational safety and health and understandable. Occupational safety and health managers and workers had difficulties in understanding toxicological information, hazards identification, stability/reactivity, composition/information on ingredients, physical/chemical properties and ecological information. On multiple logistic regression analysis for the 16 heading of material safety data sheet, content of material safety data sheet was significantly associated with education level (odds ratio=0.286, 95% confidence interval=0.105-0.780). The hazard identification (odds ratio=3.947, 95% confidence interval=1.092-14.271) and toxicological information (odds ratio=0.841, 95% confidence interval=0.705-0.998) were significantly associated with type of occupation. Conclusions: This finding implies that the education level, type of occupation and speciality of occupational safety and health managers may affects hazards information delivery.

Review of Problems with Use of Halogenated Cleaning Solvents Revealed through Case Studies of Cleaning Solvent Poisoning and Analysis of Domestic and Overseas Regulations (세척제 용매 중독 사례와 국내·외 규제 검토를 통한 할로겐화 용매 세척제 사용의 문제점 고찰)

  • Naroo Lee;Hye Jin Lee;Sujin Jeong;Dohee Lee;Arom Shin
    • Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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    • v.33 no.4
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    • pp.517-527
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    • 2023
  • Objectives: We examine cases of chemical poisoning that occurred in the cleaning of metal parts and the regulations on halogenated solvents in other countries and propose regulations necessary to prevent chemical poisoning from halogenated solvents. Methods: We collected cases of chemical poisoning through the website of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency. A review of the literature was conducted focusing on regulations related to halogenated solvents in the United States and the European Union, particularly for cleaning metal parts. Among the Material Safety Data Sheets submitted to the government, MSDS containing eleven substances were extracted to confirm the composition and product use. We investigated cleaning methods for metal parts used in South Korea. For the hazard classification, the European Chemicals Agency or Japan's NITE's website was used. Results: In the case of poisoning, the cleaning methods involving trichloromethane were dipping and dry, which was not found in the literature. It was confirmed that many halogenated solvents and dimethyl carbonate were used for metal cleaning in South Korea. In vapor degreasing using TCE in the USA, even if the facility is strictly managed, such as by installing cooling coils in open cleaning facilities, the risk of exposure to TCE is considered to be not only carcinogenic but also a concern for acute and chronic effects. In comparison, exposure through Korean work methods such as dipping and drying operations is inevitably much higher. Conclusions: The transition to water-based cleaning with low-hazard chemicals should be a priority in the cleaning process. In the case of metal parts that require precise cleaning, if the use of a halogenated solvent is inevitable, a closed degreasing facility should be used to minimize exposure. The current regulations in the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Chemical Substances Control Act, and the Air Environment Conservation Act do not require cleaning facilities to minimize emissions. To protect the health of workers using halogenated solvents to clean metal parts, regulations that require a fundamental reduction in exposure will be necessary.

Ecological Risk Assessment of 4,4'-Methylenedianiline (4,4'-Methylenedianiline의 환경매체별 위해성평가)

  • Hyun Soo Kim;Daeyeop Lee;Kyung Sook Woo;Si-Eun Yoo;Inhye Lee;Kyunghee Ji;Jungkwan Seo;Hun-Je Jo
    • Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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    • v.49 no.6
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    • pp.334-343
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    • 2023
  • Background: South Korea's Act on Registration and Evaluation, etc. of Chemicals (known as K-REACH) was established to protect public health and the environment from hazardous chemicals. 4,4'-Methylenedianiline (MDA), which is used as a major intermediate in industrial polymer production and as a vulcanizing agent in South Korea, is classified as a toxic substance under the K-REACH act. Although MDA poses potential ecological risks due to industrial emissions and hazards to aquatic ecosystems, no ecological risk assessment has been conducted. Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the ecological risk of MDA by identifying the actual exposure status based on the K-REACH act. Methods: Various toxicity data were collected to establish predicted no effect concentrations (PNECs) for water, sediment, and soil. Using the SimpleBox Korea v2.0 model with domestic release statistical data and EU emission factors, predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) were derived for ten sites, each referring to an MDA-using company. Hazard quotient (HQ) was calculated by ratio of the PECs and PNECs to characterize the ecological risk posed by MDA. To validate the results of modeling-based assessment, concentration of MDA was measured using in-site freshwater samples (two to three samples per site). Results: PNECs for water, sediment, and soil were 0.000525 mg/L, 4.36 mg/kg dw, and 0.1 mg/kg dw, respectively. HQ for surface water and sediment at several company sites exceeded 1 due to modeling data showing markedly high PEC in each environmental compartment. However, in the results of validation using in-site surface water samples, MDA was not detected. Conclusions: Through an ecological risk assessment conducted in accordance with the K-REACH act, the risk level of MDA emitted into the environmental compartments in South Korea was found to be low.