United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Industrial Environmental Research
Laboratory
Cincinnati OH 45268
Research and Development
EPA-600/S2-84-030 Feb. 1984
c/EPA Project Summary
The Rubber-Processing
Chemicals Data Base
A. Twhigg, E. Helmes, D. Kashiwase, S. Rovito, and K. E. McCaleb
This report describes the work
performed on a project to establish a
Rubber-Processing Chemicals Data
Base (RPCDB) as an extension of the
Organic Chemical Producers Data base
(OCPDB) which has been maintained
by the EPA since 1976.
The RPCDB was conceived of as the
second in a series of supplements to the
OCPDB to be focused on various
sectors of the chemical industry. The
first such supplement, the Organic
Dyes and Pigments Data Base
(ODPDB), is also being developed by
SRI International. Specifications for
the data elements and formatting
closely follow the currently employed
General Purpose OCPDB Update Forms,
with minor modifications eflecting the
nature of the entries.
Over 300 chemical products are
included in the RPCDB, representing
virtually all the organic chemicals used
to process rubber in the U.S. at eco-
nomically significant levels. The
development of the data base was
started by using some of the
information obtained in an earlier study
done by SRI for the International
Agency for Research on Cancer. This
study had concerned the exposure to
chemical products in the rubber
industry. Additional sources for the
data collected include various on-line
data banks, government statistical and
research publications, standard
industry handbooks, and the expertise
of the staff in several ongoing SRJ
programs.
The entry format was designed to be
compatible with the System 2000®
data base management system imple-
mented in 1979 and currently in use for
the revised OCPDB. When placed on
System 2000, retrieval of data will be
possible in the same manner as with the
revised OCPDB, using a variety of
"key" data elements to correlate the
data needed.
This Project Summary was developed
by EPA's Industrial Environmental
Research Laboratory, Cincinnati, OH.
to announce key findings of the
research project that is fully document-
ed in a separate report of the same title
(see Project Report ordering informa-
tion at back).
Introduction
The Rubber-Processing Chemicals
Data Base (RPCDB) was designed to be a
specialized extension of the Organic
Chemical Producers Data Base (OCPDB),
focusing exhaustively on a specific use
area within the chemical industry. The
OCPDB was originally intended as a
catalog of large-volume industrial
chemicals; it was initiated in 1976 using
a list of 380 chemicals and was revised in
1980 and expanded to include
petrochemical feedstocks, priority
pollutant chemicals, and other large-
volume products. The RPCDB represents
an emphasis distinct from the existing
OCPDB, since it is an attempt at a
comprehensive catalog of one specific
industry rather than a cross-industry
comparison of a small number of
important individual products. It contains
a large number of complex, closely-
related products unused outside of the
industry under examination, since a
much lower minimum volume was
employed as a basic criterion than in the
OCPDB. Coupled with this is a decrease
in the average amount of data per product
entry, since many of the products are
obscure and the particular industry is
highly proprietary. Data elements which
were sought but for which information
was seldom or never found included use
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volume and percent domestic use,
Wiswesser Line Notations, specific
figures for annual production volume and
sales, IPPEU reference numbers, and
chemical producer process capacities.
Discussion and Procedure
The intent in preparing the RPCDB was
to adhere as closely as possible to the
model of the revised OCPDB, given the
somewhat different nature of the data
available on rubber-processing chemi-
cals. Table 1 lists the data elements
included in the RPCDB.
Because the requirements of the soft-
ware currently employed in the OCPDB
Table 1. Data Elements in the RPCDB
Chemical Information
Chemical I.D. number
Chemical name
CAS number
New chemical marker
Priority pollutant marker
Wiswesser line notation
NIOSH registry number
Synonyms
Economic Information
Year
Production volume
Unit cost
Sales value
Use Information
Chemical or allied product
Use description
Amount
Percent domestic use
IPPEU reference number
SIC code
Product application
Product Process Information
Process I.D. number
Process description (brief)
IPPEU reference number
Reaction component
OCPDB number
ICPDB number
Industrial origin
SIC code
Other process material
Process description (extended)
Chemical Producer Information
Chemical producer name
Chemical producer I.D. number
City location
State location
Zip code
County location
River basin name
River basin code
AQCR code
Process capacity
Parent company
are more sensitive to field length
specifications, modifications in the data
elements were generally not permitted.
(For the ODPDB, different software was
available and a number of field lengths
had been increased and additional data
elements were added.)
The criteria for inclusion of chemicals
in the RPCDB were established in
accordance with the United States
International Trade Commission (USITC)
definition of minimum commercially sig-
nificant production as given in the
publication Synthetic Organic Chemicals,
U.S. Production and Sales: 1,000 pounds
annual production for chemicals found in
the rubber-processing chemicals section
of that publication, and 5,000 pounds for
plasticizers,chemical intermediates, and
miscellaneous products. Many of the
candidates for the RPCDB were derived
from an SRI task on evaluating industrial
exposure to rubber-processing chemicals
performed for the International Agency
for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 1981.
The list of chemicals developed for IARC
was evaluated with regard to their U.S.
production or importation levels under
the criteria given above for the period
1977-1980. A number of the IARC
chemicals believed to be used only in
Europe were dropped, although certain
natural products for which no production
figures were available were retained.
Rubber by-products, monomers, and
plasticizers had been excluded from the
IARC study, but a decision was made to
include those plasticizers used primarily
for processing rubber in the RPCDB. A
selection of 22 such plasticizers was
compiled, bringing the total candidate list
to 327 products.
It was found that 53 of the candidate
chemicals were large-volume products
that had previously been entered in the
OCPDB. To avoid duplicating existing
data, the only information gathered for
the RPCDB on these chemicals consisted
of economic updates and synonyms and
end use data specific to rubber-
processing applications. The candidates
were arranged in structurally-related
groupings for the purpose of data collec-
tion, as they had been in the IARC study
(see Table 2).
The sequence for data entry was, how-
ever, alphabetical -- in conformity with
the OCPDB. Five-digit entry ID numbers
were assigned to new products beginning
with number 20000 in order to
distinguish the RPCDB from the ODPDB,
which used numbers between 10000 and
18000.
Table 2. IARC Rubber-Processing
Chemicals Arranged by Structural
Class
A. Nitrogen compounds
/. Phenylenediamines
2, Diphenylamines
3. Other aromatic amines
4. Aromatic amine-aldehyde (ketone)
condensates
5. Quinolines
6. Arylguanidines
7. Alky I amines
8. Carbamates
9. Miscellaneous
B. Sulphur compounds
1. Mercaptans
2. Thiocarbamates
3. Benzothiazoles
a. Sulphenamides
b. Miscellaneous
4. Xanthates
5. Sulphides and disulphides
a. Thioethers
b. Thiurams
c. Miscellaneous
6. Thioureas
7. Miscellaneous
C. Oxygen compounds
/. Phenols
a. Carbon-bridged phenols
b. Alkylated phenols
c. Aminophenols
d. Hydroquinones
e. Miscellaneous
2. Quinones
3. Carboxylic acids and salts
4. Anhydrides and esters
5. Peroxides
6. Aldehydes and ketones
7. Alcohols
8. Miscellaneous
D. Phosphorus compounds
1. Phosphites
2. Phosphates and phosphonates
E. Halogen compounds
F. Hydrocarbons
G. Miscellaneous organic compounds
As the RPCDB was designed to be
completely compatible with the revised
OCPDB, information on data structure
and accessing have not been provided
here; the report entitled "The Revised
Organic Chemical Producers Data Base
System," U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, September 1980, EPA-600/2-
80-164, should be consulted. A
4
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A. Twhigg, E. Helmes. D. Kashiwase, S. Rovito. and K. E. McCaleb are with SRI
International, Menlo Park, CA 94025.
MarkJ. Stutsman is the EPA Project Officer (see below).
The complete report, entitled/'The Rubber-Processing Chemicals Data Base,"
(Order No. PB84-149 137; Cost: $8.50, subject to change} will be available only
from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:
Industrial Environmental Research Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Cincinnati, OH 45268
AUS GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1984-759-015/7313
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Environmental Protection
Agency
Center for Environmental Research
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