Development of a New Toxicity Test Method Using a Bio-dipstick

摘要

The toxicity is an important property of environmentally considerate lubricants. To determine this property, numerous toxicity test methods have been developed using sophistical devices. Some of these tests have adapted to evaluating the toxicity properties of lubricants, while others have required some modification or do not work in lubrication applications. Currently, the OECD 203 guideline 203, fish, acute toxicity test, is widely used to evaluate the toxicity of lubricants using trout. This toxicity test method also requires special biological knowledge and a well- equipped laboratory. For this reason, most toxicity test methods cannot be performed in the petroleum laboratory. The bio-dipstick is a formation of agar medium and was designed to monitoring of microbial contamination in various industrial environments. Recently, this bio-dipstick has been also successfully used for screening the initial inoculums conditions for the aquatic biodegradation tests. In a similar approach, a potential toxicity test method for lubricants was studied using a bio-dipstick. The test results showed that the proposed test method was able to differentiate the toxicity level of lubricants and provided an acceptable test precision. In addition, it gave a good correlation with the results of OECD guideline 203 test. It appears that this toxicity test method can screen the toxicity of lubricants within very short period. This paper will be presented how to develop the toxicity test method and its test results.