Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Feb 4;9(2):32.
doi: 10.3390/toxics9020032.

Investigation on Combined Inhalation Exposure Scenarios to Biocidal Mixtures: Biocidal and Household Chemical Products in South Korea

Sunmi Kim  1 , Myungwon Seo  1 , Minju Na  1 , Jongwoon Kim  1
Affiliations

Investigation on Combined Inhalation Exposure Scenarios to Biocidal Mixtures: Biocidal and Household Chemical Products in South Korea

Sunmi Kim et al. Toxics. .

Abstract

Global regulations of biocides have been continuously enhanced for protecting human health and the environment from potentially harmful biocidal products. Such regulations consider the combined toxicity caused by mixture components in a biocidal product of which approval and authorization are to be enhanced. Although the combined exposure scenarios of components in mixtures are firstly needed to conduct the mixture risk assessment, systematic combined exposure scenarios are still lacking. In this study, combined inhalation exposure scenarios of biocides in household chemical and biocidal products marketed in South Korea were investigated based on the European Union (EU) and Korean chemical product databases and various data sources integration. The information of 1058 biocidal products and 675 household chemical products that are likely to cause inhalation exposure with two or more biocides was collected, and mixture combination patterns were investigated. Binary mixtures occupied 72% in biocidal products. The most frequently appearing binary mixture was phthalthrin and d-phenothrin. Based on the frequency of use, we suggested a priority list of biocide mixture combinations which need to be firstly evaluated for identifying their combined toxicity for the mixture risk assessment. This study highlights that the derived combined inhalation exposure scenarios can support and facilitate further studies on priority settings for mixture risk assessment and management of potentially inhalable biocides.

Keywords: biocidal product; combined inhalation exposure; household chemical product; mixture risk assessment; priority biocide mixture.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders provided some of their in-house data with cooperation for only the purpose of R&D, but had no role in the design of the study; in the analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of the specific product category (a) biocidal products; (b) household chemical products which have biocidal active substances in the combined inhalation exposure scenario data of biocides in South Korea investigated in this study.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of the specific product category (a) biocidal products; (b) household chemical products which have biocidal active substances in the combined inhalation exposure scenario data of biocides in South Korea investigated in this study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
A part of the network visualization of chemical combinations in biocidal and household chemical products. Lines connect ingredients contained in the same product, and color-focused with larger size vertices means more abundantly used chemicals. The numbers in circles represent the CAS registry number of chemicals. Five compounds that have the high node’s degree in this part are shown as follows: 64-17-5 (ethanol), 2634-33-5 (BIT), 78-70-6 (linalool), 5989-27-5 (D-Limonene), and 122-99-6 (2-phenoxyethanol).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Distribution of the number of biocides in the mixture combinations investigated in the combined inhalation exposure scenarios data of biocides in South Korea (a) biocidal products; (b) household chemical products.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Distribution of the number of biocides in the mixture combinations investigated in the combined inhalation exposure scenarios data of biocides in South Korea (a) biocidal products; (b) household chemical products.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Interim report of epidemiological investigation on lung injury with un-known cause in Korea. Public Health Wkly. Rep. KCDC. 2011;4:817–832. (In Korean)
    1. Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) Humidifier Disinfectant Damage Support Portal. [(accessed on 3 December 2020)]; Available online: https://www.healthrelief.or.kr/home/content/stats01/view.do.
    1. ECHA (European Chemical Agency) Biocidal Products Regulation. [(accessed on 4 December 2020)]; Available online: https://echa.europa.eu/regulations/biocidal-products-regulation/legislation.
    1. MoE (Ministry of Environment) Act No. 15511 of the Korean Ministry of Environment of the Council of 20 March 2018 Concerning Household Chemical Products and Biocidal Products Safety. Ministry of Environment; Sejong, Korea: 2018. (In Korean)
    1. Hahn S., Schneider K., Gartiser S., Heger W., Mangelsdorf I. Consumer exposure to biocides—Identification of relevant sources and evaluation of possible health effects. Environ. Health. 2010;9:7. doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-9-7. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources