PETRORISK: a risk assessment framework for petroleum substances.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science and Chemistry
• Chemical Risk Assessment
• Regulatory Science

Background:

• Petroleum substances are complex mixtures requiring robust risk assessment under European REACH regulations.
• Traditional methods struggle with the variability of physicochemical, fate, and effects properties of individual hydrocarbon constituents.
• Existing regulations necessitate evaluation of environmental risk and human exposure from petroleum substance emissions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate the PETRORISK modeling framework for assessing petroleum substance risks.
• To address the challenge of complex substance risk assessment using a hydrocarbon block approach.
• To comply with European Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) requirements.

Main Methods:

• Combines single chemical risk assessment strategies with the hydrocarbon block approach.
• Defines blocks based on analytical data, using representative constituents for property determination.
• Models emissions and predicted exposure concentrations (PEC) using mass-weighted constituents; compares PEC to predicted no-effect concentrations (PNEC) and derived no-effect levels (DNEL) for risk evaluation.

Main Results:

• PETRORISK successfully models environmental risks across compartments at regional and local levels.
• Human health risks are evaluated by comparing predicted human dose to substance-specific DNELs.
• A case study on kerosene demonstrates the framework's practical application in risk assessment.

Conclusions:

• The PETRORISK framework provides a viable method for the environmental and human health risk assessment of complex petroleum substances.
• The hydrocarbon block approach effectively simplifies the assessment of substances with numerous constituents.
• This modeling approach supports regulatory compliance and informed decision-making for petroleum substance management.