A Novel Methodology for Health Hazard and Risk Assessment of Dermal and Inhalation Exposure

¹ School of Chemical and Energy Engineering / Centre of Hydrogen Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Selangor, Malaysia
³ Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering/ Centre of Excellence for Green Technologies, The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Selangor, Malaysia
⁴ School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Malaysia, Putrajaya, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: mimi@cheme.utm.my/mimiharyani@utm.my

Abstract

Household products such as dishwasher products and multipurpose cleaners may contain specific chemical ingredients to meet the consumer needs. However, some of the ingredients may result in skin and respiratory irritation. Thus, a systematic methodology to estimate the extent of hazard and risk for consumers’ exposure to the products is needed. In this work, an index-based methodology is presented to estimate the severity of the hazards and risks of the ingredients at during the early stage of product design. Higher score was assigned to the higher potential of hazard and risk, and vice versa. The hazard potential was determined based on hazard classification by the Global Harmonised System (GHS). Risk assessment was performed by considering the Margin of Exposure (MOE) and Risk Characterization Ratio (RCR). To demonstrate the proposed methodology, the dermal and inhalation hazards as well as risks from ingredients used in formulation of liquid detergent were evaluated.