May cause skin irritation. Environmental Impact Acetonitrile is released to the environment during its manufacture and use, from shale oil retorting and coal gasification, incineration of polyacrylonitrile, from automobile exhaust and cigarette smoke. If released to soil, aerobic biodegradation is likely to occur. Acetonitrile is expected to be mobile in soil and may evaporate from soil surfaces. Biodegradation is expected to be a major loss process in water.
Acclimatization increases the biodegradation rate substantially.
Volatilization may become competitive with other loss processes particularly at shallow water depths. Hydrolysis, photolysis, adsorption to suspended particles and sediments and bioconcentration in aquatic organisms are not likely to be important fate mechanisms. Acetonitrile is likely to be unreactive towards direct photolysis in air and the half-lives for its reaction with OH radicals and ozone have been estimated to be 535 days and 860 days, respectively. Therefore, it will persist in the troposphere for a long time and may be transported a long distance from its source of emission. Wet deposition may remove some of the atmospheric acetonitrile.