Vinyl Chloride Sources
Vinyl chloride is a colorless gas.
Vinyl chloride sources. Vinyl chloride a chemical known to cause cancer poisons the air breathed by workers and people living in contaminated communities. Vinyl chloride is a chlorinated hydrocarbon occurring as a colorless highly flammable gas with a mild sweet odor that may emit toxic fumes of carbon dioxide carbon monoxide hydrogen chloride and phosgene when heated to decomposition. Vinyl chloride may also enter homes through soil vapor intrusion which occurs when. Vinyl chloride is used to make polyvinyl chloride pvc.
Measured concentrations ranged from trace levels to over 2600 μg m 3 and the average daily intake of vinyl chloride by residents living near such emission sources. Vinyl chloride is an organochloride with the formula h 2 c chcl that is also called vinyl chloride monomer vcm or chloroethene this colorless compound is an important industrial chemical chiefly used to produce the polymer polyvinyl chloride pvc. It can be formed when other substances such as trichloroethane trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene are broken down. Tobacco smoke which contains low levels of vinyl chloride is a possible source for vinyl chloride in indoor air.
Another possible source is evaporation from contaminated well water that is used for household purposes. Pvc is used to make a variety of plastic products including pipes wire and cable coatings and packaging materials. It has a mild sweet odor. Emissions and effluents from the plastics industry may be exposed to relatively high concentrations of airborne vinyl chloride.
Vinyl chloride is used primarily to make polyvinyl chloride pvc. Populations living near emission sources e g. It does not occur naturally and must be produced industrially for its commercial uses. Vinyl chloride has been used in the past as a refrigerant.
The purpose of the national emission standard for hazardous air pollutants neshap is to minimize vinyl chloride emissions from process and fugitive emission sources in ethylene dichloride vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride production categories to the level attainable with best. What is vinyl chloride. About 13 billion kilograms are produced annually. Vinyl chloride is primarily used to make polyvinyl chloride to manufacture plastics.
It is a manufactured substance that does not occur naturally. It burns easily and it is not stable at high temperatures. Vinyl chloride is a colorless gas that burns easily.