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Technical Article Sharing - Basic FAQ about Chemicals Safety Management

December 31, 2021
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In the daily audit, we often encounter that some factories do not understand some basic knowledge of chemical management, such as which chemicals need secondary containers? How can the secondary container be qualified? Which chemicals are hazardous? What do MSDS and CAS mean? Here, we entrust SGS chemical professionals to give you a brief introduction.

1. Do all chemicals require secondary containers?
Article 3.6.12 of code for fire protection design of buildings (GB 50016-20142018 Amendment) stipulates that class A, class B and class C liquid warehouses need to be equipped with secondary containers; Article 20 of the regulations on the safety management of hazardous chemicals (2013 Revision) stipulates that hazardous chemicals need to be equipped with anti-leakage devices. Chemicals that do not fall within the scope of these two regulations may not be equipped with secondary containers.
 
2. Are there any requirements for the volume of secondary containers?
At present, there is no specific standard in China. Refer to EPA regulations and standards EPA 40CFR264.175 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to equip secondary containers, as follows: Volume: the volume design of secondary container of independent container shall be greater than 110% of the volume of basic container; The secondary container volume of multiple containers shall not be less than 150% of the volume of the largest container and 10% of the total volume of all basic containers. In addition to the necessary volume bearing capacity, the outdoor secondary container shall also have a rainfall volume of 11.43mm. The volume of all secondary containers installed in the open area of the automatic sprinkler must also be able to carry the water output of all discharge heads of the automatic sprinkler for 20 minutes. 3. What should be included in the chemical safety label? The safety label of hazardous chemicals includes: chemical name, chemical composition, warning words, safety measures, hazard signs, hazard overview, manufacturer information, hazard code number and UN number. Examples are as follows:

 

4. What is MSDS?
MSDS is the abbreviation of material safety data sheet. It is a comprehensive legal document related to the characteristics of chemicals provided to customers by chemical production or sales enterprises according to legal requirements. It includes 16 contents, including physical and chemical parameters, combustion and explosion performance, health hazards, safe use and storage, leakage disposal, first aid measures and relevant laws and regulations. MSDS can be prepared by the manufacturer according to relevant rules. However, in order to ensure the accuracy and standardization of the report, you can apply to professional institutions for preparation. Generally, MSDS needs to be obtained from dealers or manufacturers.

5. What does MSDS contain? 
<GB / T 17519-2013 guidelines for the preparation of technical instructions for chemical safety> and <GB / T 16483-2008 contents and project sequence of technical instructions for chemical safety> clearly stipulate that MSDS includes 16 parts, respectively:  
1) chemical and enterprise identification; 
2) Hazard overview; 
3) Composition / composition information; 
4) First aid measures; 
5) Fire fighting measures; 
6) Emergency treatment of leakage; 
7) Handling and storage; 
8) Exposure control and personal protection; 
9) Physical and chemical properties; 
10) Stability and reactivity; 
11) Toxicological information; 
12) Ecological information; 
13) Waste disposal; 
14) Transportation information; 
15) Regulatory information; 
16) Other information. 
The title, number and sequence of each part shall not be arbitrarily changed. 
The regulations on the safe use of chemicals in the workplace require that MSDS should be updated every five years.

6. How to confirm whether the chemicals used are hazardous chemicals? 
The catalogue of hazardous chemicals can be queried on the website of the Ministry of emergency management of the people's Republic of China. When the CAS number of industrial products is the same as that of hazardous chemicals listed in the catalogue of hazardous chemicals (whether its Chinese name is the same or not), they can be regarded as the same hazardous chemicals. 

7. How to judge whether the mixture is a hazardous chemical?  
1) Mixtures whose main components are hazardous chemicals listed in the catalogue and the sum of mass ratio or volume ratio of main components is not less than 70% (except those identified as not belonging to the determination principle of hazardous chemicals) can be regarded as hazardous chemicals and managed as hazardous chemicals.
2) For the mixture whose main components are listed in the catalogue and the sum of the mass ratio or volume ratio of the main components is less than 70% or the chemicals whose hazard characteristics have not been determined, the production or import enterprises shall identify and classify them in accordance with the measures for the administration of physical hazard identification and classification of chemicals (Order No. 60 of the State Administration of work safety) and other relevant regulations, If the identification and classification belong to the determination principle of hazardous chemicals, the hazardous chemicals shall be registered in accordance with the measures for the administration of hazardous chemicals registration (Order No. 53 of the State Administration of work safety), but the relevant safety administrative licensing procedures are not required.

8. What’s the CAS code? 
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service) is a subordinate organization of the American Chemical Society, which is responsible for assigning a CAS number to each substance appearing in the literature. The purpose is to avoid the trouble of multiple names of chemical substances and make the retrieval of the database more convenient. 
The query website link: https://echa.europa.eu/search-for-chemicals

 

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Ms Calla Huang
t: +86 (0)755 2532 8137
e: cn.rbs@sgs.com

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