- Home
- 1. Introduction and Purpose
- 2. Production Information and Product Characteristics
- 3. Health Aspects
- 4. Environmental Aspects
- 5. Design and construction of transport and storage equipment
- 6. Transport, Loading and Storage Operations
- 7. Emergency procedures
- 8. Personal protection, first aid and medical treatment
- 9. Styrene: REACH Consortium
- Appendices
- Bibliography
4. Environmental Aspects
4.3 Partitioning to the Water Compartment
In the event of a spill, styrene will slowly volatilise and little will dissolve. The concentration to which aquatic organisms will be exposed will depend on the air and water temperature and turbulence. The depletion graph shown in Figure 7 gives an illustration of the change of the styrene concentration with time, both in stagnant water and when stirred slowly.
Figure 7: Styrene Depletion from Water at 20-25°C
Results from a laboratory simulation clearly show that styrene will disappear from water even when unstirred, but the rate of depletion is much faster in turbulent conditions, i.e. 10 hours vs. 80 hours. In other words, when spilled, the hazard of dissolved styrene will be considerably different from that based on toxicity studies for which the standard protocol is followed.
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