The Haber Rule: The Effect of Poisonous Gas Concentration

The Haber Rule: The Effect of Poisonous Gas Concentration
Fritz Haber was a German scientist during the time of the First World War. He was in charge of the notorious
German chemical weapons program during the war. He invented many of the poison gases which were used,
and was later criticised for his work. For all of the bad he had attained, he actually out did himself by his good
discoveries, such as a commercially-feasible method of manufacturing ammonia, for fertilizers (thus saving
the world from famine.) His motivation, however, may have been for the production of cheap ammonia, in order
to manufacture explosives for wartime use.
He is credited with many other discoveries, one of which came to be known as 'Haber's Rule' (explained below.)
I have done some research on the application of this principle to airborne particulate matter. See the links below
to various studies which have suggested, or established, links to this well-known scientific principle.
Haber's Rule may especially apply to wood smoke particles, since they tend to accumulate in the lungs, and are
principally non-polar. The smallest of these particles, the less-than-2.5 micron particle size, may be the most
destructive of all, since such small particles can traverse into the deepest recesses of the lungs.
Any airborne chemical compound which is non-polar (that is, non-water soluble; water is, by contrast, highly polar)
can tend to collect in the lungs, or be absorbed into the bloodstream, where it ultimately ends up in a fat cell (fats
are also non-polar, thus tend to attract the non-polar chemical to itself.) This is how airborne dioxins and polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons terminally reach the body's fat cells, where they tend to continue to accumulate over time.
Haber's Rule is cited in these articles:
NEW LINK
Habers rule... cumulative ... together with ozone, especially PM10 particulates ...
http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_c ... t38_en.htm
_________________________________________________________________
NEW LINK
On the Importance of Exposure Variability to the Doses of Volatile Organic Compounds
http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/conten ... 4.abstract
_________________________________________________________________
book format; has a free PDF version (must join)
Toxicity of Military Smokes and Obscurants/Committee on Toxicology,
Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=5582
_____________________________________________________
Acute Exposure Guideline Levels for Airborne Chemicals
http://www2.epa.gov/aegl
_____________________________________________________
PPV
Chemical mutagens: Dosimetry, Haber's rule and linear systems
W. H. Olson and R. B. Cumming/Journal of Theoretical Biology Volume 91, Issue 3, 7 August 1981, Pages 383-395
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 9381902630
_____________________________________________________
PPV
Prediction of the Toxic Effects of Fire Effluents
Gordon E. Hartzell
http://jfs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abst ... 179?ck=nck
Fritz Haber was a German scientist during the time of the First World War. He was in charge of the notorious
German chemical weapons program during the war. He invented many of the poison gases which were used,
and was later criticised for his work. For all of the bad he had attained, he actually out did himself by his good
discoveries, such as a commercially-feasible method of manufacturing ammonia, for fertilizers (thus saving
the world from famine.) His motivation, however, may have been for the production of cheap ammonia, in order
to manufacture explosives for wartime use.
He is credited with many other discoveries, one of which came to be known as 'Haber's Rule' (explained below.)
I have done some research on the application of this principle to airborne particulate matter. See the links below
to various studies which have suggested, or established, links to this well-known scientific principle.
Haber's Rule may especially apply to wood smoke particles, since they tend to accumulate in the lungs, and are
principally non-polar. The smallest of these particles, the less-than-2.5 micron particle size, may be the most
destructive of all, since such small particles can traverse into the deepest recesses of the lungs.
Any airborne chemical compound which is non-polar (that is, non-water soluble; water is, by contrast, highly polar)
can tend to collect in the lungs, or be absorbed into the bloodstream, where it ultimately ends up in a fat cell (fats
are also non-polar, thus tend to attract the non-polar chemical to itself.) This is how airborne dioxins and polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons terminally reach the body's fat cells, where they tend to continue to accumulate over time.
"In his studies of the effects of poison gas, Haber noted that exposure to a low concentration of a poisonous gas for a long time often had the same effect (death) as exposure to a high concentration for a short time. He formulated a simple mathematical relationship between the gas concentration and the necessary exposure time. This relationship became known as Haber's rule."
"Haber's rule is a mathematical statement of the relationship between the concentration of a poisonous gas and how long the gas must be breathed to produce death, or other toxic effect. The rule was formulated by German chemist Fritz Haber in the early 1900s.
Haber's rule states that, for a given poisonous gas, , where C is the concentration of the gas (mass per unit volume), t is the amount of time necessary to breathe the gas, in order to produce a given toxic effect, and k is a constant, depending on both the gas and the effect. Thus, the rule states that doubling the concentration will halve the time, for example.
Haber's rule is an approximation, useful with certain inhaled poisons under certain conditions, and Haber himself acknowledged that it was not always applicable. It is very convenient, however, because its relationship between C and t appears as a straight line in a log-log plot. In 1940, statistician C. I. Bliss published a study (Bliss, 1940) of toxicity in insecticides in which he proposed more complex models, for example, expressing the relationship between C and t as two straight line segments in a log-log plot. However, because of its simplicity, Haber's rule continued to be widely used. Recently, some researchers have argued (Miller et al., 2000) that it is time to move beyond the simple relationship expressed by Haber's rule and to make regular use of more sophisticated models."
Haber's Rule is cited in these articles:
NEW LINK
Habers rule... cumulative ... together with ozone, especially PM10 particulates ...
http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_c ... t38_en.htm
_________________________________________________________________
NEW LINK
On the Importance of Exposure Variability to the Doses of Volatile Organic Compounds
http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/conten ... 4.abstract
_________________________________________________________________
book format; has a free PDF version (must join)
Toxicity of Military Smokes and Obscurants/Committee on Toxicology,
Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=5582
_____________________________________________________
Acute Exposure Guideline Levels for Airborne Chemicals
http://www2.epa.gov/aegl
_____________________________________________________
PPV
Chemical mutagens: Dosimetry, Haber's rule and linear systems
W. H. Olson and R. B. Cumming/Journal of Theoretical Biology Volume 91, Issue 3, 7 August 1981, Pages 383-395
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 9381902630
_____________________________________________________
PPV
Prediction of the Toxic Effects of Fire Effluents
Gordon E. Hartzell
http://jfs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abst ... 179?ck=nck