Environmental Fate
Excerpt from ARTF Category Justification - Read-across is not applied to any of the environmental fate endpoints. A summary of the relevant environmental fate properties is given in the full report. There are data available on all members of the category, for all of the required environmental fate endpoints. The data that are available are derived from studies of appropriate quality to warrant a high degree of reliability and accordingly, all have Klimisch ratings of 1 or 2. QSAR estimations have been utilised to address the hydrolysis endpoint (tBA, iBA), phototransformation in air, and to support the discussion on bioaccumulation.
The available data shows that, with the exception of 2EHA which hydrolyses slowly in contact with water, abiotic degradation by hydrolysis is only expected to play an important role in the degradation of acrylate esters in alkaline environment.
All substances within the category are readily biodegradable in water, except for tert-butyl acrylate which is considered to be moderately biodegradable.
Additionally, none of the substances are expected to bioaccumulate according to the PBT / vPvB criteria for B assessment.
Adsorption to soil, sediments and suspended solids of acrylic acid and the acrylate esters is not to be expected.
The acrylate esters are expected to evaporate slowly but to an increasing extent with increasing chain length and molecular weight. Based on the physical chemical properties of the acrylate esters, the atmosphere is the main target compartment for distribution and only small amounts will remain in the hydrosphere and geosphere.
Overall, these data serve to demonstrate that there are clear similarities and trends in the environmental fate properties of the members of the category, related to molecular weight, molecular size and hydrolysis and strongly supports the hypothesis that read-across between category members is justified for ecotoxicity endpoints.
For more information, see Category Justifcation Document for use under EU REACH.