Coupled near-field and far-field exposure assessment framework for chemicals in consumer products.

Humans can be exposed to chemicals in consumer products through product use and environmental emissions over the product life cycle. Exposure pathways are often complex, where chemicals can transfer directly from products to humans during use or exchange between various indoor and outdoor compartments until sub-fractions reach humans. To consistently evaluate exposure pathways along product life cycles, a flexible mass balance-based assessment framework is presented structuring multimedia chemical transfers in a matrix of direct inter-compartmental transfer fractions. By matrix inversion, we quantify cumulative multimedia transfer fractions and exposure pathway-specific product intake fractions defined as chemical mass taken in by humans per unit mass of chemical in a product. Combining product intake fractions with chemical mass in the product yields intake estimates for use in life cycle impact assessment and chemical alternatives assessment, or daily intake doses for use in risk-based assessment and high-throughput screening. Two illustrative examples of chemicals used in personal care products and flooring materials demonstrate how this matrix-based framework offers a consistent and efficient way to rapidly compare exposure pathways for adult and child users and for the general population. This framework constitutes a user-friendly approach to develop, compare and interpret multiple human exposure scenarios in a coupled system of near-field ('user' environment), far-field and human intake compartments, and helps understand the contribution of individual pathways to overall human exposure in various product application contexts to inform decisions in different science-policy fields for which exposure quantification is relevant.

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  Environment International

• Publication date

  2016-09-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Chemistry, Engineering, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.envint.2016.06.010PMID 27318619
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• Illustrative applications in personal care products and flooring materials show that the framework can rapidly compare exposure pathways for adult and child users and for the general population.

  Confidence 0.91

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• Combining product intake fractions with the chemical mass in a product yields intake estimates for life cycle impact assessment, chemical alternatives assessment, risk-based assessment, and high-throughput screening.

  Confidence 0.95

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• Matrix inversion is used to quantify cumulative multimedia transfer fractions and exposure pathway-specific product intake fractions.

  Confidence 0.96

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• A coupled near-field and far-field exposure assessment framework is presented that structures multimedia chemical transfers as a matrix of direct inter-compartmental transfer fractions.

  Confidence 0.97

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review

• adult users

  population group

  Adult people considered as one of the exposure-receiver groups in the illustrative comparisons.

  Aliases: adults

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• chemical alternatives assessment

  assessment context, application

  An assessment context that compares exposure-related implications of substituting one chemical or product option for another.

  Aliases: CAA

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• child users

  population group

  Child people considered as one of the exposure-receiver groups in the illustrative comparisons.

  Aliases: children

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• coupled near-field and far-field exposure assessment framework

  framework, method

  A mass-balance exposure assessment framework that links near-field user environments, far-field compartments, and human intake compartments in a coupled system.

  Aliases: coupled exposure assessment framework, near-field and far-field framework

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• direct inter-compartmental transfer fractions

  parameter, fraction

  Fractions that describe immediate chemical transfer from one compartment to another within the modeled multimedia system.

  Aliases: direct transfer fractions, inter-compartment transfer fractions

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• flooring materials

  product category

  Indoor building materials used as one of the illustrative product categories in the abstract.

  Aliases: flooring

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• general population

  population group

  The broader population group used for comparing exposure pathways in the illustrative examples.

  Aliases: population

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• high-throughput screening

  screening context, application

  A screening context that uses estimated daily intake doses to rapidly evaluate many chemicals or scenarios.

  Aliases: HTS

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• life cycle impact assessment

  assessment context, application

  An assessment context that uses intake estimates to evaluate impacts associated with a product's life cycle.

  Aliases: LCIA

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• matrix inversion

  method, calculation

  A linear-algebra operation used here to derive cumulative transfer behavior from a matrix of direct compartment-to-compartment transfer fractions.

  Aliases: inverse matrix calculation

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• personal care products

  product category

  Consumer products used on the body, serving as one of the illustrative product categories in the abstract.

  Aliases: personal-care products

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• product intake fraction

  metric, exposure measure

  The fraction of chemical mass in a product that is taken in by humans for a specified exposure pathway.

  Aliases: intake fraction, PIF

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review
• risk-based assessment

  assessment context, application

  An assessment context that uses daily intake doses to characterize potential human health risk.

  Aliases: risk assessment

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionKiller Whale (322360f1c1) reviewAK (4715169a40) reviewmexicorea (qjvnbu8xg3) review

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