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Please be aware that this old REACH registration data factsheet is no longer maintained; it remains frozen as of 19th May 2023.

The new ECHA CHEM database has been released by ECHA, and it now contains all REACH registration data. There are more details on the transition of ECHA's published data to ECHA CHEM here.

Diss Factsheets

Environmental fate & pathways

Biodegradation in soil

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Description of key information

A half-life of 89.5 days in soil is used in the assessment.

Key value for chemical safety assessment

Half-life in soil:
89.5 d
at the temperature of:
293 K

Additional information

Several studies are available for degradation of ETBE in soil. The results are conflicting. One study in which soil was polluted with gasoline containing ETBE it was shown that aerobic biodegradation was observed after the spill (Yuan, 2006). A second study showed that soil microflora that had never been in contact with ETBE before were capable of rapidly degrading the substrate, although there was some evidence that there was an adverse impact on some microflora and that only gram positive bacteria flourished under the test conditions. However, in two other studies, however, it was concluded that rapid and reliable biodegradation of ETBE in soil can not be assumed under any normal environmental conditions as very slow aerobic and anaerobic degradation in soil was observed (Yeh and Novak., 2004 and 2005). As the study by Yuan was better in design and reporting than the studies by Yeh and Novak (2004, 2005), the half-life of 89.5 days from Yuan (2006) is used in the assessment.