CertiGuide to A+ (A+ 4 Real)  9  Chapter 12: Material Safety: a Personal and Technical Report on Hazardous Material Handling       9  Reading and Understanding MSDSs

Title/Header and Section One - Product Information 1 Exposure Limits

Call them ingredients, constituents, chemicals, whatever, this section lists of what the product is made up. In the first table of this section, each constituent has an item number and these item numbers will used though out the rest of the MSDS. This, again, is not the manner in which all MSDSs are formatted, but it seems to be a growing trend.

The next column gives the chemical name and the column after that, the Chemical Abstract Service number (CAS #). Chemicals often have more then one name, but each chemical is assigned a unique CAS number. The chemical in item # 2 has the name listed as Iso-Hexane ¹⁵¹, but it is also know as 2-Methylpentane. Additionally, some chemical names may be used by more then one chemical. 3-Methylpentane, 2,2 Dimethylbutane and 2,3 Dimethylbutane may also identified as Iso-hexane, yet each are separate, unique chemicals with separate, unique CAS numbers. Even if we were to list it with a trade name such as Tcat’s six-carbon solvent, it would still have the CAS # of 107-83-5, allowing it to be readily identified.

Besides, I should not have to explain that computers deal with numbers better then strings of letters. Surely, this makes the data basing of chemicals much easier. In addition, when you have over 500 MSDSs with average of five chemicals each to keep track of, a database is the only to go.

Last are the amounts of each constituent is given as percentages by weight. Percentages by volume and sometimes as just a straight percentage may also be used. This is self-explanatory, giving the amounts as a single number, a range, less then or more then values. This is necessary information in order figure approximate exposure by constituent.

Title/Header and Section One - Product Information 1 Exposure Limits