This guide was developed by TURI's librarian to assist with researching environmental, health and safety information for chemicals. It includes link to tools related to health, safety, and environmental information, as well as other related resources. It's an excellent starting point when evaluating chemicals.

ChemHAT, the Chemical Hazard and Alternatives Toolbox, is a database designed to offer up easy to use information to identify chemical hazards and locate potential replacements.

Users can search for:

• Chemicals to replace
• Processes to replace
• Alternative chemicals
• Alternative processes

SOLV-DB has been designed to meet the needs of a variety of users.

• If you are a Process Engineer, SOLV-DB will help you make intelligent choices about which solvent will do the job -- without leaving a legacy of problems.
• If you are a "Hands-On" User of solvents, SOLV-DB will help you understand what you are dealing with, and help you find out how to handle the materials wisely.
• If you are an Environmental Engineer, SOLV-DB will help you determine your responsibilities under routine conditions, and in case of accidents.
• If you are a member of the General Public, SOLV-DB will help you locate basic facts about materials of concern, and help you appreciate the trade-offs involved in solvent selection.

SOLV-DB brings together a wealth of information on commercially available solvents. Use SOLV-DB to find:

• Health and Safety considerations involved in choosing and using solvents.
• Chemical and Physical data affecting the suitability of a particular solvent for a wide range of potential applications.
• Regulatory responsibilities, including exposure and effluent limits, hazard classification status with respect to several key statutes, and selected reporting requirements.
• Environmental Fate data, to indicate whether a solvent is likely to break down or persist in air or water, and what types of waste treatment techniques may apply to it.

SOLV-DB contains several additional features for your convenience, including:

• To help you locate and evaluate suppliers for solvents listed here:
  • A list of manufacturers for each solvent
  • A list of all solvents in this database available from each manufacturer
• To help you identify a solvent from incomplete information, or help you find the solvent in other reference sources:
  • The "Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) number" for each solvent (single compounds only, not mixtures)
  • The identifying designation "Sax Number" from Sax, et al., Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials
• A table of synonyms

To help you find a range of alternative solvents for your application:

• Ability to search and sort -- example: find all compounds boiling between 50 and 90 degrees C
• Ability to exclude compounds from searches based on health or regulatory criteria -- example: find all compounds not regulated under RCRA, not carcinogenic, and not mutagenic
• Ability to select compounds based on descriptive strings -- example: find all solvents that smell like "banana"
• Ability to locate all solvents in the database falling into a given chemical category -- example: find all alcohols

To help you understand the meaning of data or properties listed in the database:

• Capsule definitions of terms, acronyms, and obscure concepts in the labels defining tabulated items.

This tool helps companies determine whether the toxic use reduction options they are considering may have unforeseen negative environmental, worker or public health impacts.

The P2OASys tool is a downloadable spreadsheet.