Assessment of occupational exposures to organic chemicals in a plastics manufacturing facility

The objective of this dissertation was to design and implement strategies for assessment of exposures to organic chemicals used in the production of a styrene-butadiene polymer at the Texas Plastics Company (TPC). Linear statistical retrospective exposure models, univariate and multivariate, were developed based on the validation of historical industrial hygiene monitoring data collected by industrial hygienists at TPC, and additional current industrial hygiene monitoring data collected for the purposes of this study. The current monitoring data served several purposes. First, it provided information on current exposure data, in the form of unbiased estimates of mean exposure to organic chemicals for each job title included. Second, it provided information on homogeneity of exposure within each job title, through the use of a carefully designed sampling scheme which addressed variability of exposure both between and within job titles. Third, it permitted the investigation of how well current exposure data can serve as an evaluation tool for retrospective exposure estimation. Finally, this dissertation investigated the simultaneous evaluation of exposure to several chemicals, as well as the use of values below detection limits in a multivariate linear statistical model of exposures. ^

Peri-conceptional changes in maternal exposure to sewage sludge chemicals disturbs fetal thyroid gland development in sheep

Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

In utero exposure to cigarette chemicals induces sex-specific disruption of one-carbon metabolism and DNA methylation in the human fetal liver

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Acknowledgements: We thank Ms Margaret Fraser, Ms Samantha Flannigan, and Dr Wing Yee Kwong for their expert assistance. The staff at Grampian NHS Pregnancy Counselling Service were essential for collecting fetuses. We thank Professor Geoffrey Hammond and Dr Marc Simard, University of British Colombia for helpful comments on the manuscript. Supported by grants as follows: Scottish Senior Clinical Fellowship (AJD); Chief Scientist Office (Scottish Executive, CZG/1/109 to PAF, & CZG/4/742 (PAF & PJOS); NHS Grampian Endowments 08/02 (PAF, SB & PJOS); the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 212885 (PAF & SMR); the Medical Research Council grants MR/L010011/1 (PAF & PJOS) and MR/K018310/1 (AJD). None of the funding bodies played any role in the design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, nor in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication

Designing safer chemicals: predicting the rates of metabolism of halogenated alkanes.

A computational model is presented that can be used as a tool in the design of safer chemicals. This model predicts the rate of hydrogen-atom abstraction by cytochrome P450 enzymes. Excellent correlations between biotransformation rates and the calculated activation energies (delta Hact) of the cytochrome P450-mediated hydrogen-atom abstractions were obtained for the in vitro biotransformation of six halogenated alkanes (1-fluoro-1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane, 1,1-difluoro-1,2,2-trichloroethane, 1,1,1-trifluro-2,2-dichloroethane, 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoro-2-chloroethane, 1,1,1,2,2,-pentafluoroethane, and 2-bromo-2-chloro-1,1,1-trifluoroethane) with both rat and human enzyme preparations: In(rate, rat liver microsomes) = 44.99 - 1.79(delta Hact), r2 = 0.86; In(rate, human CYP2E1) = 46.99 - 1.77(delta Hact), r2 = 0.97 (rates are in nmol of product per min per nmol of cytochrome P450 and energies are in kcal/mol). Correlations were also obtained for five inhalation anesthetics (enflurane, sevoflurane, desflurane, methoxyflurane, and isoflurane) for both in vivo and in vitro metabolism by humans: In[F(-)]peak plasma = 42.87 - 1.57(delta Hact), r2 = 0.86. To our knowledge, these are the first in vivo human metabolic rates to be quantitatively predicted. Furthermore, this is one of the first examples where computational predictions and in vivo and in vitro data have been shown to agree in any species. The model presented herein provides an archetype for the methodology that may be used in the future design of safer chemicals, particularly hydrochlorofluorocarbons and inhalation anesthetics.

Continuous flow nanocatalysis: reaction pathways in the conversion of levulinic acid to valuable chemicals

The selective production of 2-methyltetrahydrofuran from levulinic acid has been effectively conducted using designed Cu based catalysts and compared with a commercial Pd/C system under microwave irradiation. Optimised conditions for the most active catalysts Cu-MINT (>90% conversion, 75% selectivity to MTHF) and Pd/C (78% conversion, 92% selectivity to MTHF) were further translated into a continuous flow process using the proposed catalysts to find out the deactivation of Cu-MINT under flow conditions (79 vs. 13% conversion with a switch in selectivity to products after 30 min in flow), the high stability of Pd/C (73 vs. 70% conversion at stable selectivity under analogous conditions to those of Cu-MINT) but, most importantly, different relevant pathways to valuable products from levulinic acid depending on the type of catalyst employed.

The Composition and Drivers of Energy Prices and Costs in Energy-Intensive Industries: The Case of Ceramics, Glass and Chemicals. CEPS Special Report No. 85, 27 March 2014

In May 2013, the European Commission received a mandate from the European Council to “to present an analysis of the composition and drivers of energy prices and costs in Member States, with a particular focus on the impact on households, SMEs and energy intensive industries, and looking more widely at the EU's competitiveness vis-à-vis its global economic counterparts”. Following such mandate and in view of the preparation by the Commission of a Communication and a Staff Working Document, DG Enterprise and Industry commissioned CEPS to carry out a set of studies aimed at providing well-grounded evidence about the evolution and composition of energy prices and costs at plant level within individual industry sectors. A team of CEPS researchers conducted the research, led by Christian Egenhofer and Lorna Schrefler. Vasileios Rizos served as Project Coordinator. Other CEPS researchers contributing to the project included: Fabio Genoese, Andrea Renda, Andrei Marcu, Julian Wieczorkiewicz, Susanna Roth, Federico Infelise, Giacomo Luchetta, Lorenzo Colantoni, Wijnand Stoefs, Jacopo Timini and Felice Simonelli. In addition to an introductory report entitled “About the Study and Cross-Sectoral Analysis”, CEPS prepared five sectoral case studies: two on ceramics (wall and floor tiles and bricks and roof tiles), two on chemicals (ammonia and chlorine) and one on flat glass. Each of these six studies has been consolidated in this single volume for free downloading on the CEPS website. The specific objective was to complement information already available at macro level with a bottom-up perspective on the operating conditions that industry stakeholders need to deal with, in terms of energy prices and costs. The approach chosen was based on case studies for a selected set (sub-)sectors amongst energy-intensive industries. A standard questionnaire was circulated and respondents were sampled according to specified criteria. Data and information collected were finally presented in a structured format in order to guarantee comparability of results between the different (sub-)sectors analysed. The complete set of files can also be downloaded from the European Commission’s website: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=7238&lang=en&title=Study-on-composition-and-drivers-of-energy-prices-and-costs-in-energy-intnsive-industries The results of the studies were presented at a CEPS Conference held on February 26th along with additional evidence from other similar studies. The presentations can be downloaded at: http://www.ceps.eu/event/level-and-drivers-eu-energy-prices-energy-inten...

Greater TTIP Ambition in Chemicals: Why and how. CEPS Special Report, 28 July 2015. Paper No. 10 in the CEPS-CTR project ‘TTIP in the Balance’ and CEPS Special Report No. 114/July 2015.

To date, the negotiations over chemicals in the Translatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) have not shown sufficient ambition. The talks have focused too much on the differences in the two ‘systems’, rather than on the actual levels of health and environmental protection for substances regulated by both the US and the EU. Given the accomplishments within the OECD and the UN Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS), the question is whether TTIP can be any more ambitious in the area of chemicals? We find that there is no detailed or systematic knowledge about how the two levels of protection in chemicals compare, although caricatures and stereotypes abound. This is partly due to an obsessive focus on a single US federal law, the Toxic Subtances Control Act (TSCA), whereas in practice US protection depends on many statutes and regulations, as well as on voluntary withdrawals (under pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency) and severe common law liability. This paper makes the economic case for firmly addressing the regulatory barriers, discusses the EU’s proposals, finds that the European Parliament’s Resolution on TTIP of July 2015 lacks a rationale (for chemicals), argues that both TSCA and REACH ought to be improved (based on ‘better regulation’), discusses the link with a global regime, advocates significant improvement of market access where equivalence of health and environmental objectives is agreed and, finally, proposes to lower the costs for companies selling in both markets by allowing them to opt into the other party’s more stringent rules, thereby avoiding duplication while racing-to-the-top. The ‘living agreement’ on chemicals ought to be led by a new TTIP institution authorised to establish the level of health and environmental protection on both sides of the Atlantic for substances regulated on both sides. These findings will lay the foundation for a highly beneficial lowering of trading costs without in any way affecting the level of protection. Indeed, this is exactly what TTIP is, or should be, all about.This paper is the 10th in a series produced in the context of the “TTIP in the Balance” project, jointly organised by CEPS and the Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) in Washington, D.C. It is published simultaneously on the CEPS (www.ceps.eu) and CTR websites (http://transatlantic.sais-jhu.edu).

Status assessment of toxic chemicals : vinylidene chloride /

Mode of access: Internet.

Design and evaluation of a terrestrial model ecosystem for evaluation substitute pesticide chemicals /

Mode of access: Internet.