{"id":2967,"date":"2014-01-22T10:40:22","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T15:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=2967"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:01:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:01:33","slug":"is-this-the-mystery-chemical-in-the-wv-spill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2014\/01\/22\/is-this-the-mystery-chemical-in-the-wv-spill\/","title":{"rendered":"Is this the mystery chemical in the WV spill?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D.<\/em>,<\/em> is a Senior Scientist.<\/p>\n

[PLEASE SEE UPDATE TO THE INFORMATION BELOW IN MY MORE RECENT BLOG POST<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

I <\/span>blogged last night<\/span><\/a> that the <\/span>Charleston Gazette<\/span><\/a><\/i> had reported<\/span><\/a> that <\/span>a \u201cnew\u201d chemical that was revealed to have been present in the tank in Charleston, WV, that began leaking into the Elk River on January 9 and contaminated the drinking water supply for 300,000 residents.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Two alert readers recognized the acronym \u201cPPH\u201d and the description of the chemical in Freedom Industries\u2019 <\/span>Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for \u201cPPH, stripped\u201d<\/span><\/a>, to which I had linked, and suggested the identity of the chemical might be a grade or form of propylene glycol phenyl ether (CAS no. 770-35-4).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve not been able to find further references to or information on \u201cPPH, stripped,\u201d but with the help of those alert readers I have found information on what appears to be a similar but not identical<\/i> product made by The Dow Chemical Company, under the trade name \u201c<\/span>DOWANOL<\/span>TM<\/span><\/sup> PPh Glycol Ether\u201d \u2013 see Dow\u2019s <\/span><\/span>Technical Data Sheet<\/span><\/a> and its <\/span>Product Safety Assessment<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Among the names Dow lists for its product are both \u201c<\/span>propylene glycol phenyl ether\u201d and \u201cPPh.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve compared information available on the Dow and Freedom Industries products.\u00a0 Physical-chemical properties are similar but not identical for the two materials.\u00a0 For example, the boiling point for \u201cPPH, stripped\u201d is 247<\/span>\u00b0<\/span><\/span>C, and for DOWANOL<\/span>TM<\/span><\/sup> it\u2019s 241<\/span><\/span>\u00b0<\/span>C.\u00a0 (This is consistent with the process of \u201cstripping,\u201d by which more volatile components of a mixture are distilled out, which would raise the boiling point of the remaining more concentrated higher molecular weight components of the mixture.)\u00a0 The liquid densities of the two products also match: \u00a01.06 grams per cubic centimeter.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Both products are indicated as being eye and skin irritants, but of low acute oral toxicity.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I contacted Dow this morning, and asked if the Freedom Industries\u2019 \u201cPPH, stripped\u201d material was supplied by Dow or is the same material.\u00a0 My Dow contact answered no to each question.\u00a0 There are <\/span>quite a few suppliers of this chemical globally<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[PLEASE SEE UPDATE TO THE ABOVE INFORMATION IN MY MORE RECENT BLOG POST<\/a>.]<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It thus appears likely that the \u201cnew\u201d chemical in the West Virginia spill is a form of propylene glycol phenyl ether.\u00a0 But questions remain as to who made the \u201cstripped\u201d version, who supplied it to Freedom Industries, why its specific chemical identity is being claimed proprietary, and what information beyond that in the company\u2019s MSDS is available regarding its hazard properties.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. [PLEASE SEE UPDATE TO THE INFORMATION BELOW IN MY MORE RECENT BLOG POST.] I blogged last night that the Charleston Gazette had reported that a \u201cnew\u201d chemical that was revealed to have been present in the tank in Charleston, WV, that began leaking into the Elk River on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,44,56096],"tags":[39155,39171,39993,39996],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-policy","category-omboira","tag-cbi","tag-exposure-vs-hazard","tag-general-interest","tag-wv-chemical-spill"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12696,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions\/12696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2967"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}