Application of screening tools for environmental hazard and risk to support assessment and subsequent prioritization of effluent discharges from the oil and gas industry.

Assessment and management of effluent discharges are key to avoiding environmental deterioration. Often compliance with discharge regulations and permits is based on a limited set of chemical parameters, while information on whole effluent hazardous properties (toxicity, bioaccumulation potential, persistence) and environmental risks is lacking. The need to collect those data and to become more effective in quickly identifying high-risk activities, without extensive laboratory testing, has led to the development of screening tools to complement information on chemical composition.

Re-evaluation of target lipid model-derived HC5 predictions for hydrocarbons.

The target lipid model (TLM) has been previously applied to predict the aquatic toxicity of hydrocarbons and other nonionic organic chemicals and for deriving the concentrations above which 95% of species should be protected (HC5 values). Several concerns have been identified with the TLM-derived HC5 when it is applied in a substance risk assessment context. These shortcomings were addressed by expanding the acute and chronic toxicity databases to include more diverse taxonomic groups and increase the number of species.

A Review of the Environmental Degradation, Ecotoxicity, and Bioaccumulation Potential of the Low Molecular Weight Polyether Polyol Substances.

"Polyalkylene glycol" is the name given to a broad class of synthetic organic chemicals which are produced by polymerization of one or more alkylene oxide (epoxide) monomers, such as ethylene oxide (EO) and propylene oxide (PO), with various initiator substances which possess amine or alcohol groups. A generalization of this polymerization reaction is illustrated in Fig. 1.

Critical micelle concentration values for different surfactants measured with solid-phase microextraction fibers.

The amphiphilic nature of surfactants drives the formation of micelles at the critical micelle concentration (CMC). Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fibers were used in the present study to measure CMC values of 12 nonionic, anionic, cationic, and zwitterionic surfactants. The SPME-derived CMC values were compared to values determined using a traditional surface tension method.

PETRORISK: a risk assessment framework for petroleum substances.

PETRORISK is a modeling framework used to evaluate environmental risk of petroleum substances and human exposure through these routes due to emissions under typical use conditions as required by the European regulation for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH). Petroleum substances are often complex substances comprised of hundreds to thousands of individual hydrocarbons. The physicochemical, fate, and effects properties of the individual constituents within a petroleum substance can vary over several orders of magnitude, complicating risk assessment.