Acrylics health effects

Murphy SR and Davies JH (1993) Methyl acrylate health effects overview. In Tyler TR, Murphy SR, and Hunt EK (eds.) Health Effect Assessments of the Basic Acrylates, pp. 33-52. Boca Raton, FL CRC Press. 

Sakurai H, Onodera M, Utsunomiya T, et al. 1978. Health effects of acrylonitrile in acrylic fibre factories. Br J Ind Med 35 219-225. 

Urethanes pose severe handling problems. The material, when vaporized, is flammable and can cause serious respiratory system effects. In common with the acrylics, the end product (if fully reacted) poses no health problems. 

Impact Modifiers Impact modifiers are either systems with spherical elastomer particles in a rigid polymer matrix or they are systems with a honeycomb, network type of dispersed elastomeric phase. For the spherical elastomeric particles, examples are acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), methacrylate-butadiene-styrene (MBS) and acrylics. These systems are either graft copolymers of methyl methacrylate-butyl acrylate-styrene or methyl methacrylate-ethylhexyl acrylate-styrene. For the honeycomb, network type of dispersed elastomeric phase ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) and chlorinated polyethylene (CPE) or directly dispersed rubber are examples. Both of these two impact modifiers exist in the polymeric form, hence they can hardly migrate and evaporate because of their size. As a result, they pose almost no problems to health. For PVC window frame production, usually the first type (and acrylic impact modifiers) are used while MBS modifiers are found to be very effective in plasticised as well as in rigid PVC. CPE is mainly used in PVC for products like sheet, pipe, gutters and sidings. 

No harmful effects on health have been observed that could have been caused by processing Terblend S under normal conditions of industrial practice in well-ventilated workplace. Under such conditions concentrations of styrene, n-butyl acrylate, and aciylonitrile are well below permitted concentrations. 

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