Talk:Trichloroethylene

Untitled
This article needs to be summarized. I suggest "Water Contamination by Trichloroethylene" should be a separate article. Toxic effects are appropriate for the current TRICHLOROETHYLENE article, but the ground water contamination issue deserves it's own entry.

The references need to be redone in proper format. Please use the standard Wikipedia reference system. EtherDoc (talk) 17:29, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately this article remains a hodgepodge of individual water contamination concerns and news reports of science articles of varying importance. I have added some actual medical references and removed new report references. An ALS report on Gulf War Veterans is interesting but only marginally related to this topic. Most of this article should be removed and placed in separate more specific articles such as WATER CONTAMINATION BY TCE, HEALTH RISKS FROM TCE EXPOSURE, etc. EtherDoc (talk) 23:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Solubility
TCE IS soluable in water... (unsigned comment by user:7segment 00:24, 4 July 2006
 * Indeed it is. It exists quite readily in dissolved phase in groundwater.  Someone should fix ... Nfitz 20:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

YES, it can exist in (ground)water, but it is relatively INSOLUBLE in water. Solubility in water, g/100 ml at 20°C: 0.1  EtherDoc (talk) 23:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC) http://www.inchem.org/documents/icsc/icsc/eics0081.htm

anesthetical uses?
"Supplanting chloroform and ether for a significant period of time, trichloroethylene demonstrated superior efficacy..."

Please note that "anesthetical" is not a word. I believe you mean "anesthetic". EtherDoc (talk) 23:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

This paragraph seems to be talking about uses as an anesthetic, of which I was heretofore unaware. Could someone please make this more clear? --7segment 04:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * OK --done.  Mfbabcock (and others)  I'm surprised at how few people in the toxicology world are aware of just how many patients received very high levels of TCE with minimal acute problems.

I'm surprised you aren't aware of the numerous studies demonstrating an increased risk of spontaneous abortion in operating room personnel closest to the source - the nurse anesthetists. Please read on, it is one reason most of the anesthetic now goes in your arm or spine. . Occup Environ Med. 1997 Aug;54(8):541-8.Click here to read Links Risk of spontaneous abortion in women occupationally exposed to anaesthetic gases: a meta-analysis. Boivin JF.

No, most anesthetic does not go "in your arm or spine". Most anesthetic is still inhaled. Today the favorites are sevoflurane and desflurane. The issue of increased spontaneous abortions in operating room personnel is quite important. We now scavenge gases carefully. But which gas if any might cause this is still difficult to know. The issue was never really resolved and now is rarely discussed since the science was poor. If anything nitrous oxide (still used, but not as much) may be a worse culprit. Mfbabcock (talk) 04:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

carcinogenicity
The references to carcinogenicity should stick to well established studies and reviews. Although there certainly are valid concerns for its toxicity and carcinogenicity, these types of data are often difficult to interpret. Mfbabcock 02:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

EPA 2005 study, as well as their Integrated Risk Assessment System (IRIS) indicates TCE as a known carcinogen. There is ample data to back this up. I will put the citations in the article. Sean Egan (talk) 02:32, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

TCE as an organochlorine compound
The sentence in the health effects section:

"Organochlorine compounds such as trichloroethylene present a potentially serious environmental liability given their great resistance to natural degradation and their high marine toxicity",

does not provide a good characterization of TCE health risks. TCE isn't that kind of organochlorine compound; that description better represents persistant organic pollutants (POPs) such as dioxins/furans, PCBs and chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides. TCE doesn't pose a significant ecological risk, in comparison with its potential human health risks, and while somewhat recalcitrant, will biodegrade in soil and groundwater. If you're going to have an introductory statement for this section, would be better to focus on the potentially widespread human exposures, the cancer risks and developmental toxicity. Jlowe19 03:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Some additional comments on health effects section
The metabolism of TCE and its carcinogenicity in animals is a little more complex than discussed in the article. Active metabolites in liver carcinogenicity in mice are trichloroacetic acid (not trichloroethanol), dichloroacetic acid and chloral hydrate, according to the NAS report released in July 2006. So, the following sentence:

"[t]he active metabolite of trichloroethylene is trichloroethanol, identical to that of chloral hydrate. Therefore, concerns of the carcinogenicity of the latter have been raised, and is subject to on-going debate",

should be revised, and moved from the Uses to the Health Effects section.

It's probably an overstatement that "[t]he long-term effects of trichloroethylene on human beings are unknown". The health effects of TCE are better understood that most chemicals, and while there's uncertainty concerning the significance of adverse effects at low levels of exposure, that a different point compared to the one stated in the article.

It's correct that TCE doesn't cause liver cancer in rats, however, TCE has been shown to cause kidney cancer in rats. In addition, the NAS report concluded there was a "concordance" between the animal studies and human experience with regard to kidney cancer, and it appears that kidney cancer is of more concern now than liver cancer. Also, it's a small point, but the IARC Group 2A classification is called "probably carcinogenic to humans". What's there is the NTP ROC designation.

The thinking concerning adverse reproductive effects has undergone some change, and it's now a little more certain that TCE and/or a metabolite is associated with congenital cardiac defects in humans (again from the NAS report).

The statement that EPA concluded TCE is from 2 to 40 times more carcinogenic than previously believed isn't correct - EPA's 2001 report doesn't say anything like that. I've explored the folklore behind that statement in my blog, Impact Analysis (I'll find the links later - it doesn't have a good search engine). It would be better to characterize this sentence as something the popular media has said, or delete it. The best thing to say is that TCE is more of human health concern than previously believed. Jlowe19 14:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

--- I agree. Please go ahead and make changes to make the article more factual and less emotional. Mfbabcock 16:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The revisions to the health effects section will be posted shortly. Jlowe19 16:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

TCE as a cause of Parkinson's Disease
Recent research indicates that exposure to TCE greatly increases the risk of developing Parkinson's Disease decades later. See this article:. The current page does not mention Parkinson's but I believe it should. Montereyham (talk) 12:54, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Montereyham


 * It was added to the article before but was moved to another article. See and.
 * I ageee that the information is important. IMHO it can be re-added with a better source. -- Dustfreeworld (talk) 22:54, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
 * What about this?
 * -- Dustfreeworld (talk) 02:14, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Done. The information was in Parkinson’s disease months ago, so it should be no problem adding it here :)   -- Dustfreeworld  (talk) 23:25, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Are you sure that it causes Parkinson's? You added a lot of parkinsons-related studies as references to its uses, while there are many articles focusing on the chemical itself and not a medical theory. There's more than a disease suspicion to trichloroethylene. I understand that parkinsons is your special interest, but this is TCE, not carbon disulphide or anything really neurotoxic.
 * Are you sure that it causes Parkinson's? You added a lot of parkinsons-related studies as references to its uses, while there are many articles focusing on the chemical itself and not a medical theory. There's more than a disease suspicion to trichloroethylene. I understand that parkinsons is your special interest, but this is TCE, not carbon disulphide or anything really neurotoxic.


 * Can you add the mechanisms then? If you want to mention Parkinson's, you should also add how it is supposed to cause this disease IMO. None of the metabolites of TCE (chloral, trichloroethanol, trichloroacetic acid and even chloroform!) seem to be neurotoxic.
 * tce (talk) 01:06, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I use the PD studies to support TCE’s uses just because I came across them and found that they summarise the uses very well, and mentioned some uses that the article didn’t mention before. Feel free to replace the refs. if you can find better and more comprehensive full-text source. And as far as I remember, I didn’t add “a lot of” PD studies to support TCE’s uses. I only added two. And as you said, this is TCE, I don’t see why I should add the PD mechanism to it. Thanks and regards, -- Dustfreeworld (talk) 03:51, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * BTW, please kindly note that a whole section mentioning PD was added by someone back in June, and was removed by another user last month . Further, this thread (which requested the mention of PD in the article) that you are replying to wasn’t started by me. So you shouldn’t have asked me “are you sure that it causes Parkinson's?” It’s not ME. Ask THEM instead. Or ask those who wrote the reliable source.
 * If you are really interested in the mechanism, here maybe a good start.
 * “NIEHS-funded researchers show exposure to TCE may affect protein kinase LRRK2, a gene that is active in the brain and other body tissues, and elevate the risk of Parkinson's”
 * And one final point, please do not remove well-cited information (e.g. those about the EPA ban) as you did. Thank you. -- Dustfreeworld (talk) 04:50, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello. I sometimes use TCE and I met with people who work with it. This conversation made me wonder about the mechanism too. Is it TCE itself or a metabolite that causes damage to enzymes(?)? Saint concrete (talk) 08:25, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Revisions to health effects section: 11/25/06
Updated the introduction to focus on the principal reason for concern about TCE - the widespread nature of exposure.

Revised discussion of carcinogenicity to reflect the current assessment as presented in the NAS report. Included a contrasting review regarding kidney cancer (recently published in J. Urology).

Revised discussion of developmental toxicity to reflect current assessment as presented in the NAS report.

Presented a more detailed chronology of the review process for TCE, from the "state of the science" review, through EPA's 2001 reassessment and the NAS report. Removed the misleading conclusion that EPA found TCE to be from "2 to 40 times more carcinogenic". It's a factoid as I've discussed here: http://impact_analysis.blogspot.com/2006/04/more-of-tce-story-missed-by-la-times.html.

Provided more description of the extent of TCE contamination in groundwater, noting there are more than just sites in the DOD and DOE complexes.

Removed misleading statement regarding chloral hydrate metabolite from the "Uses" section.

Jlowe19 10:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Health Effects section references added
References have been added for the revised information in the health effects section. Jlowe19 20:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Salina contamination
I have added a link to the Salina, Kansas page under the contaminated cities section. Although, strictly speaking, the TCE leak from KSLN hasn't quite reached the water supply yet... How should we handle this? Some kind of note? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.67.36.168 (talk) 14:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Forrest City, AR water supply contaminated.
Forrest City, AR needs to be added to the contaminated cities list of water contaminated with Trichloroethylene. A link to support this is below.

http://www.thnews.com/article.php?id=6196 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.255.159.151 (talk) 06:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a separate article on places with contaminated groundwater would be more appropriate. Such a list is not appropriate for the main article on the chemical trichloroethlylene. Mfbabcock (talk) 04:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think there needs to be a link right at the beginning of the section for 'Human exposure ' that links to another article 'click here to see further TCE Contamination History ' ,or something like that...and then just have a brief summary under human exposure on the main Trichloroethylene wiki. A separate article seems more appropriate because it looks weird putting all this on the main wiki. There's been so many reports and stories of possible TCE contamination that it would take its own wikipedia to really organize it. 67.167.245.102 (talk) 15:26, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm moving them to a new article Saint concrete (talk) 13:45, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

New section - Environmental Concerns
I'll be adding a section to this article about the environmental implications of TCE, since it's a regulated substance and is so prevalent in our environment. Because of this, there will be some redundancy. Maybe we could take certain portions of information out or move them to the new section. Feel free to let me know what you think about that. I'll wait for comments before I start adding anything. Sean Egan (talk) 02:46, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Untitled
The references had a 2001 peer review draft of the EPA toxicity assessment. It was just updated to instead refer to the Final toxicity review published by USEPA in 2011, with a link to a page where it can be found. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndrewRA (talk • contribs) 00:13, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Trichloroethylene. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20050530143200/http://www.idph.state.il.us:80/envhealth/pdf/LISLE%20RWs%20PHA%20FINAL%20Release.pdf to http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/pdf/LISLE%20RWs%20PHA%20FINAL%20Release.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110717081553/http://www.lejeune.usmc.mil:80/ to http://www.lejeune.usmc.mil/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 03:22, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Trichloroethylene. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090108223210/http://www.jdnews.com/news/water_58714___article.html/bill_tce.html to http://www.jdnews.com/news/water_58714___article.html/bill_tce.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 12:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 one external links on Trichloroethylene. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120107011331/http://www.nda.ox.ac.uk:80/wfsa/html/u11/u1115_02.htm to http://www.nda.ox.ac.uk/wfsa/html/u11/u1115_02.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090226233935/http://www.epa.gov/Region5/sites/behr/pdfs/behr-factsheet-200809.pdf to http://www.epa.gov/Region5/sites/behr/pdfs/behr-factsheet-200809.pdf
 * Added tag to http://www.epa.gov/region09/waste/sfund/indianbend/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 06:33, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Trichloroethylene. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110625114247/http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/roc12 to http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/roc12
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061223134943/http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/eleventh/profiles/s180tce.pdf to http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/eleventh/profiles/s180tce.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061223134943/http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/eleventh/profiles/s180tce.pdf to http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/eleventh/profiles/s180tce.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 05:11, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Article on the link between Trichloroethylene and Parkinsons
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/07/rates-of-parkinsons-disease-are-exploding-a-common-chemical-may-be-to-blame John Cummings (talk) 20:25, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Noticed that. If some WP:MEDRS emerged, that would be useful, but until then Wikipedia can say nothing that implies an effect. Alexbrn (talk) 20:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Separate articles for TCE-related incidents?
I think there should be a separate articles for TCE-related incidents such as leaks etc. This is the main article about the chemical compound. Saint concrete (talk) 13:41, 28 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Before making such a major change to the article, it would be best to actually engage in discussion before moving forward. What is the rationale for removing them from this article? It's entirely common and normal for adverse events pertaining to a chemical compound to be covered within the article for same. There aren't that many incidents that it overwhelms this article.
 * I would gently request that you revert the changes you've already made until others have had an opportunity to discuss as well. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 18:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

History/Invention/Discovery of Trichloroethylene
Have just fallen down a rabbit hole due to recent edits. Hermann Emil Louis Fischer, the ostensible discoverer of Trichloroethylene, was born in 1852. He didn't even begin studying chemistry until at least 1869, according to his wikipedia entry, and other sources I've reviewed. Yet in numerous sources, he is listed as the discoverer of Trichloroethylene in 1864...when he would have been twelve. This is extremely unlikely. An IP editor change the article to state that it was not Hermann Emil Louis Fischer, but a different Emil Fischer. Unfortunately I'm not able to nail down precisely who that Emil Fischer is. So, I'm puzzled. The sources I've looked at far predate the existence of wikipedia, so they aren't merely parroting the information here, so it was definitely an Emil Fischer who discovered it - but I can find nothing more specific on the matter. Could use some additional eyes on the matter... cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 03:21, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I read old chemistry documents and contribute to the histories of organohalides. Trichloroethylene was originally synthesised by Auguste Laurent in 1836. I will write on it soon. Saint concrete (talk) 09:10, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Most excellent - thank you kindly. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 21:32, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Refrigeration - citation needed
The article states that trichloroethylene was used for refrigeration. I don't doubt it, most volatile organohalides were tried as refrigerants. I'd like to know how/when/why it was used in refrigeration. Saint concrete (talk) 08:15, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Melting point?
Does trichloroethylene freeze at -85 °C or -73 °C? Various sources online give values close to both. I looked up database books on Internet Archive and the values were no different from the online ones, all close to either -85 °C or -73 °C. Necatorina (talk) 06:57, 29 June 2024 (UTC)