Safety
Exposure to high concentrations of carbon tetrachloride (including vapor) can affect the central nervous system, degenerate the liver and kidneys and may result (after prolonged exposure) in coma and even death. Chronic exposure to carbon tetrachloride can cause liver and kidney damage and could result in cancer. More information can be found in Material safety data sheets.
In 2008, a study of common cleaning products found the presence of carbon tetrachloride in "very high concentrations" (up to 101 mg m−3) as a result of manufacturers' mixing of surfactants or soap with sodium hypochlorite (bleach).
Like many other volatile substances, carbon tetrachloride is prone to misuse by inhalation, due to its possible depressant and/or dissociative effect upon the central nervous system. Use of carbon tetrachloride in this manner presents serious health risks, and may result in toxic effects described above.
Carbon tetrachloride is also both ozone-depleting and a greenhouse gas. However, since 1992 its atmospheric concentrations have been in decline for the reasons described above (see also the atmospheric time-series figure). CCl4 has an atmospheric lifetime of 85 years.
Read more about this topic: Carbon Tetrachloride
Famous quotes containing the word safety:
“If we can find a principle to guide us in the handling of the child between nine and eighteen months, we can see that we need to allow enough opportunity for handling and investigation of objects to further intellectual development and just enough restriction required for family harmony and for the safety of the child.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“He had a gentleman-like frankness in his behaviour, and as a great point of honour as a minister can have, especially a minister at the head of the treasury, where numberless sturdy and insatiable beggars of condition apply, who cannot all be gratified, nor all with safety be refused.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“To emancipate [the slaves] entirely throughout the Union cannot, I conceive, be thought of, consistently with the safety of the country.”
—Frances Trollope (1780–1863)