Health assessment of gasoline and fuel oxygenate vapors: generation and characterization of test materials.
In compliance with the Clean Air Act regulations for fuel and fuel additive registration, the petroleum industry, additive manufacturers, and oxygenate manufacturers have conducted comparative toxicology testing on evaporative emissions of gasoline alone and gasoline containing fuel oxygenates. To mimic real world exposures, a generation method was developed that produced test material similar in composition to the re-fueling vapor from an automotive fuel tank at near maximum in-use temperatures. Gasoline vapor was generated by a single-step distillation from a 1000-gallon glass-lined kettle wherein approximately 15-23% of the starting material was slowly vaporized, separated, condensed and recovered as test article. This fraction was termed vapor condensate (VC) and was prepared for each of the seven test materials, namely: baseline gasoline alone (BGVC), or gasoline plus an ether (G/MTBE, G/ETBE, G/TAME, or G/DIPE), or gasoline plus an alcohol (G/EtOH or G/TBA). The VC test articles were used for the inhalation toxicology studies described in the accompanying series of papers in this journal. These studies included evaluations of subchronic toxicity, neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity, genotoxicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity. Results of these studies will be used for comparative risk assessments of gasoline and gasoline/oxygenate blends by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Chevron Energy Technology Company, 100 Chevron Way, Richmond, CA 94801-2016, USA. Electronic address: mikeandroxann@comcast.net.
Michael
M
Henley
ExxonMobil Biomedical Sciences, Inc., 1545 US Highway 22, East Annandale, NJ 08801-3059, USA. Electronic address: Daniel.j.letinski@exxonmobil.com.
Daniel J
DJ
Letinski
Chevron Energy Technology Company, 100 Chevron Way, Richmond, CA 94801-2016, USA. Electronic address: JohnCarr@Chevron.com.
John
J
Carr
Chevron Energy Technology Company, 100 Chevron Way, Richmond, CA 94801-2016, USA. Electronic address: MarioCaro@chevron.com.
Mario L
ML
Caro
ExxonMobil Biomedical Sciences, Inc., 1545 US Highway 22, East Annandale, NJ 08801-3059, USA. Electronic address: wayne.c.daughtrey@exxonmobil.com.
Wayne
W
Daughtrey
American Petroleum Institute, 1220 L. Street NW, Washington, DC 20005, USA. Electronic address: whiter@api.org.
Russell
R
White
D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000032:analysis; D005742:Gasoline / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014481:United States; D014484:United States Environmental Protection Agency
D000393:Air Pollutants; D005742:Gasoline
Clean Air Act; Diisopropyl ether (DIPE); Ethanol (EtOH); Ethyl tert butyl ether (ETBE); Evaporative emissions; Fuels and fuel additives; Gasoline vapor condensates; Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE); t-Amyl methyl ether (TAME); t-Butyl alcohol (TBA)