Registration Dossier
Registration Dossier
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EC number: 201-186-8 | CAS number: 79-21-0
Endpoint summary
Administrative data
Description of key information
Dermal: 0.2% peracetic acid is not causing irritating effects
Additional information
Several published reports on exposure of human by different concentrations of PAA are available.
In one historic published report Pazdiora and Kubicek (1967) investigated the use of the disinfectant Persteril as a dilution containing 0.2% PAA for disinfecting the hands of a surgery team. The Persteril dilution containing 0.2% PAA was well tolerated by the volunteers. The concentration of 0.2% PAA is sufficient for eradication of pyogenic staphylococci and 97% reduction of residual flora on the hand within 3 minutes.
The same result was found in a study by Kretschmer (1971), who found that even daily skin disinfection with 0.2% PAA could be considered as non to only slightly irritating to skin.
In contrast, the dermal tolerance level for PAA on the human skin was reported to be 0.4% PAA by Schröder (1982), while up to 2500 mg/L PAA (corresponding to ca. 0.25% solution) is not irritating and at 3300 mg/L PAA (corresponding to ca. 0.33% solution) is a mild irritant (French, 1993).
Another performed investigation demonstrated that peracetic acid applied caused dermal irritation reactions in a third of health care workers when the material tested was a product containing 0.5% of peracetic acid (Kramer, 1987).
A review by Mücke and Sprossig (1969) on the adverse effects of PAA summarized, that concentrated peracetic acid, especially a 40% solution, was found to cause severe and sustained chemical burns of the affected skin and relevant risk management measures are required.
Overall the data suggest, that 0.2% PAA can be regarded as not causing any effect to human skin.
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