Issue related to safety, health and environmental has become major priority to be
concerned of in the transportation of hazardous materials (HAZMAT) worldwide. Due
to the high risk that entailed in the operation of HAZMAT transportation, many
accidents in this industry have been reported which include chemicals spillage, fire
and explosion. In order to quantify the degree of hazards and risks of these accidents,
various assessment methods have been introduced either by the academia, the
industry as well as the authority. The methods present various approaches for the
assessment, ranging from a simple to highly complicated ones depending on the
purpose of the assessment and the available resources and constraints. To date there
is yet any study conducted to review those available methods. This paper intends to
present a comprehensive review of the existing methods for hazards and risks
assessment of HAZMAT transportation between years 1995-2015 which considers
road, marine, railway, air and pipeline system. Based on careful screening of the
abundance of methods available, 151 of them were selected – that is those
specifically meant for hazards and risks assessment of HAZMAT transportation only.
The methods are reviewed in terms of the types of assessment; either qualitative,
quantitative or hybrid techniques, as well as their specific application in different
mode of transportation. Also, statistical analysis was performed to determine the
trend of past publications regarding on the type of journal, year of publication and
also financial support received in the context of hazard and risk assessment of
HAZMAT transportation.
In household products, specific chemical ingredients are used to satisfy the desired target properties as required by the consumers. However, some of these ingredients may result in safety risks and adverse health effects. Early consideration of safety and health aspects during product design is vital to minimize the impact on consumers. Safety and health aspects have not been strongly emphasized before in many product design methodologies. Therefore, a systematic methodology is proposed to assess the safety and health effects of the potential ingredients, before they are used in the product formulation. The chemical ingredient candidate may be a novel ingredient or a typical ingredient used in formulated product design. In this work, a computer-aided molecular design (CAMD) technique was used to design the novel ingredient candidates with the integration of safety and health aspects. Then, the safety and health performance of the ingredient candidates were assessed by inherent safety and health sub-indexes. Each safety or health parameter was assigned with a score, based on the degree of the potential hazards. A higher score was given to the ingredients with higher safety risk or more severe health effect, and vice versa. The result of the safety and health assessment based on the score allocation had contributed to the selection of chemical ingredient. This new approach ensures that the selected ingredient possesses desirable properties as well as low safety and health effects. A case study on surfactant design is presented to illustrate the incorporation of safety and health aspects into product design methodologies.