Systematic Evaluation Of The Hazard Potential Of Solvents
Small- to medium-sized companies often can not afford, and/or find it is too time consuming to have a safety, health, and environmental (SHE) expert employed to guide solvent selection. External consultants are an option, but many times they are too costly for smaller companies. Given this situation, many stay with their existing solvent formulations as long as they remain legal, even if they present possible safety and/or health risks of which they are unaware.
This article describes a new tool that can easily and more accurately evaluate the risk potential of solvents and aid in the selection of safer replacement solvents. The parameters describe a vapor hazard ratio (VHR) and a solvent hazard parameter (SHP), which are based on existing guidelines to classify solvents according to their hazard potential.