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Characterizing the composition of commercial products for use in exposure assessments
Citation:
Price, P., K. Isaacs, J. Wambaugh, A. Williams, K. Dionisio, AND K. Phillips. Characterizing the composition of commercial products for use in exposure assessments. Society of Toxicology 55th Annual Meeting and ToxExpo, New Orleans, LA, March 13 - 17, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
Commercial products* have been identified as significant sources of exposure for many chemicals. Estimating chemical exposures from the use of such products is a challenge because data on product composition are often not available. We present a multi-pronged approach to characterizing composition of such products.
Description:
Commercial products* have been identified as significant sources of exposure for many chemicals. Estimating chemical exposures from the use of such products is a challenge because data on product composition are often not available and because different individuals use a range of products for the same purpose. Composition data are limited because manufacturers may not know the composition of the components of their products or the compositions are considered proprietary. We present a multi-pronged approach to characterizing composition. Publically available sources of quantitative data on composition were collected from product manufacturers who have chosen to make such data public (often through the public release of material safety data sheets). For products where ingredient lists ordered by weight fraction are available, we have developed a method of predicting weight fractions for the various ingredients in the products based on the number of ingredients and the rank of the ingredients in the list1. In addition, physical/chemical characteristics of chemicals that are known to provide specific functions2 in a product are used to create models that predict the functions that a chemical in commerce could provide and the weight fraction required3. Finally, EPA is analyzing selected consumer products using advance analytical techniques which can identify a wide range of chemicals4. The results of these efforts are being incorporated in a tool, the Composition Module, that consists of databases of reported and estimated product formulae and prediction of potential functionalities of chemicals. This Module is part of the Human Exposure Model software project. The Module is also designed to be a component of the iCSS Dashboard (https://comptox.epa.gov/dashboard) and will be included in a future update of the Dashboard.
