ABSTRACT
The environmental impact of diverse polyethoxylated non-íonic surfactants has been studied. The overall results obtained allow to draw some conclusions on the real risk of ethoxylated non-ionic surfactants to the aquatic environment. The estimation of potential exposure concentration can be made either from theoretical data as tonnage, treatment and disposal, physico-chemical properties and biodegradability or from the experimental data obtained by monitoring raw sewage, treated water samples, rivers and lakes. For minimum adverse effect concentration estimation, the aspects that should be considered are toxicity to aquatic life (acute and chronic toxicity) and effects of sewage treatment and toxicity of soils. This chapter describes a simplified scheme for the environmental “acceptability” criterion for a chemical, including biodegradation tests and toxicity tests. It concludes that there exits a suficient margin of acceptability for ethoxylated non-ionic surfactants, at least for the current level of usage in diverse domestic and industrial applications.
