Estimating Airborne Benzene Exposures from Air Monitoring Data for Mineral Spirits

Abstract

“Low aromatics” vs. “regular” mineral spirits differ substantially in their aromatic hydrocarbon content. Mineral spirits contain benzene and other compounds that boil at temperatures below the cited boiling point range of 300° to 415°F. Available published information shows that until at least 2000, the benzene content of regular mineral spirits was typically 0.1% wt/wt and at times could have been 1.0% wt/wt. The present analysis accounts for benzene's higher volatility compared to mineral spirits as a whole and applies thermodynamic principles to estimate benzene vapor exposure as a subset of measured exposure to total hydrocarbons generated by the evaporation of mineral spirits. For a scenario in which the bulk mineral spirits only partially evaporate, this analysis explains the error in assuming that the mole fraction of benzene to “everything else” is the same in the vapor and liquid phases. It is shown that for a given concentration of total hydrocarbon vapor, the benzene vapor concentration can be more than 65-fold greater during mineral spirits evaporation compared to after all the mineral spirits has evaporated. In turn, it is reasonable to expect that during the use of regular mineral spirits, containing benzene typically at 0.1% wt/wt (as applies to usage prior to 2000), benzene vapor exposures could have exceeded 1 ppm even though the mineral spirits vapor exposure did not exceed 100 ppm, the ACGIH® TLV® time-weighted average (TWA) value for mineral spirits. The same analysis can be applied to current petrochemical products, such as toluene, that contain benzene and for which the required physico-chemical information is available. The analysis provides evidence that the material safety data sheet (MSDS) for a petrochemical product containing benzene at less than 0.1% wt/wt should, pursuant to Hazard Communication Standard requirements, identify the benzene as a hazardous ingredient.

Keywords:

• air monitoring
• benzene
• evaporation
• exposure
• mineral spirits
• thermodynamics

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

No funding was received for this study. The author is a forensic chemical engineer who has served as an expect witness in matters pertaining to benzene exposure.