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:
“Perhaps in a book review it is not out of place to note that the safety of the state depends on cultivating the imagination.”
—Stephen Vizinczey (b. 1933)
“[As teenager], the trauma of near-misses and almost- consequences usually brings us to our senses. We finally come down someplace between our parents’ safety advice, which underestimates our ability, and our own unreasonable disregard for safety, which is our childlike wish for invulnerability. Our definition of acceptable risk becomes a product of our own experience.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“There is always safety in valor.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)