Abstract

The requirements of risk and exposure assessments of chemicals in work environments are increasing. The use of exposure modelling tools for estimating chemical airborne exposure has increased since the European Chemicals Agency’s (ECHA) REACH legislation came into force. Two exposure modelling tools that ECHA recommends are Stoffenmanager and the Advanced REACH tool (ART). The aim of this study was to study the validity of these two exposure modelling tools. We examined the chemical airborne exposure at companies in seven different types of industries: wood, printing, foundry, spray painting, flour milling, chemical industry and plastic moulding industry. The exposure of three scenarios (if possible) at each company was assessed with the two tools and measured. To study the validity of the tools, the mean differences and precisions (lack of agreement) were calculated by using the 50th percentile outcome of the tools and the geometric mean of the measured exposure. For Stoffenmanager, the mean difference and precision of the scenarios concerning liquids was 0.02 ± 1.1 and for powders -0.12 ± 0.78. Stoffenmanager overestimated scenarios with low measured exposure and underestimated scenarios with high measured exposure. Stoffenmanager had good agreement assessing powders but less good when assessing liquids. For ART, the mean difference and precision of liquids was −0.63 ± 0.91 and for powders −1.6 ± 1.5. ART had a lower agreement when assessing powders compared to liquids. The results of scenarios concerning powders estimated by ART indicated a systematic underestimation of the exposures.