Last week, I posted information about work being conducted to develop a MINCHI standard to identify chemical mixtures reproducibly and unambiguously. There is an article in C&EN today that demonstrates the challenge of relying on less systematic approaches, such as CAS numbers. The researchers used in the CAS numbers as the identifier in this study and found that only about half of the chemicals and mixtures of chemicals registered for commercial production and use had CAS numbers that identified them.
More information can be found at:
https://cen.acs.org/policy/chemical-regulation/Number-chemicals-commerce-vastly-underestimated/98/i7
Number of chemicals in commerce has been vastly underestimated
Scientists assemble a first-ever global inventory listing triple the number of chemicals on the market as previous lists
For the first time, scientists have created a global inventory that lists more than 350,000 chemicals and mixtures of chemicals registered for commercial production and use, up to three times as many as is commonly estimated (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.9b06379).
BY THE NUMBERS
- 157,000: Individual chemicals identified by CAS numbers, according to the most comprehensive global inventory to date
- 75,000: Mixtures, polymers, and substances of unknown or variable composition identified by CAS numbers
- 120,000: Substances that could not be conclusively identified
Source: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.9b06379
Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
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