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Diss Factsheets

Environmental fate & pathways

Biodegradation in water: screening tests

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Description of key information

Readily biodegradable.

Key value for chemical safety assessment

Additional information

The inherent biodegradation potential of the test substance has been assessed in a guideline study according to OECD 302B with non-adapted activated industrial sludge as inoculum [BASF AG, 1985]. At test termination after 16 d a degradation level of 97 % has been reached. Since the pass level of 70% degradation was exceeded after 2.5 days already and the lag phase was determined to be less than 1 day, it can be concluded that the test substance is not only inherently biodegradable but also easily eliminated from water.

For assessing the ready biodegradability, a GLP guideline study of a close structural analogue (CAS 111 -69 -3, adiponitrile) to the test substance has been consulted since there is no data available for suberonitril [BASF AG, 2002]. Both chemicals (suberonitrile and adiponitrile) are aliphatic dinitriles belonging to the same homologous series as they only differ in the number of atoms in the carbon chain (i.e. suberonitrile = 8 C-atoms, adiponitrile = 6 C-atoms) and are therefore suitable analogue substances.

During the biodegradation study which was conducted according to OECD guideline 301A, a degradation of the analogue substance > 90 % (DOC removal) after 28 days was observed which indicates ready biodegradability.

Additional information from model calculations with OASIS Catalogic v5.11.5 provide biodegradation rates of 83.9 % for adiponitrile as well as for suberonitrile. The domain similarity is 100 %. This shows that suberonitrile is not only readily biodegradable itself but indeed shows similar biodegradation behaviour as adiponitrile which further justifies the read-across apporach.

Therefore, suberonitrile is considered to be readily biodegradable.