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Materials & Consumer Products 

Materials & Consumer Products 

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Construction Products

What regulations affect construction products?

The key regulations and labels include:

  • The European Construction Products Regulation (CPR).
  • The European REACH regulation on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of CHemical substances
  • Those developed by various European national agencies – such as the AgBB scheme and the ‘Ü’ mark (Germany), the Paint Varnish Directive (UK), and the ‘Émissions dans l’air intérieur’ regulation (France). Some or all of these will likely be superseded by the CPR, in due course
  • ‘Chinese REACH’, which has similar requirements to its European equivalent.
  • A range of US-led initiatives, including the Clean Air Act, LEED and the Green Label program.

Each of these regulations typically demands product testing in accordance with standard methods.

Fragrance Product

Analysis of fragranced goods is of great importance for manufacturers, whose reputation may rely upon the chemical composition of their products meeting consumer demands and regulatory requirements.

A vast range of fragranced consumer products may be monitored for their odours, including:

  • Cosmetics, toiletries, ointments and topical creams.
  • Cleaning products, surface polishes and coatings.
  • Essential oils, air fresheners and scented candles.

Profiling these products can often be a challenge, because of the presence of many VOCs at a wide range of concentrations, typically in a highly complex sample matrix.

Analysis of fragranced products

Fragrance product analysis is currently focused on three main areas:

  • Fragrance profiling – Understanding the factors that give rise to the fragrance which in turn provides the basis for product improvement.
  • Harmful chemicals – Determining levels of suspected allergens or potentially harmful chemicals in the products.
  • Off-odours – Understanding the origin of VOCs giving rise to off-odours or taints, and so ensuring production-line consistency of products from batch to batch.

The ability to run a wide range of sample types is essential for profiling fragranced goods.

The use of trap-based preconcentration is also important, because it allows sensitivity for trace-level compounds to be dramatically enhanced. Moreover, systems featuring a backflushed trap enable a wider range of sorbents to be used, allowing simultaneous analysis of volatile and semi-volatile compounds from a single analytical procedure.

Plastics

The need to monitor emissions from polymers

Understanding the effect of manufacturing processes on emissions of volatiles from polymers is a key issue for routine product quality monitoring – for example, to check the levels of residual solvents or monomers.

Such assessments are also required for compliance with regulations such as the European CPR and REACH. However, in addition to this, there has been much regulatory attention devoted to certain chemical classes.

What chemicals are of particular concern?

Chemicals of greatest concern to regulators have been those implicated in certain endocrine-related disorders. These include:

  • Bisphenol A (BPA) – Used in the manufacture of rigid polycarbonate bottles, food packaging and toys, this is now prohibited in infant feeding bottles and sippy cups under EU Directive 2011/10/EU.
  • Phthalate esters – Used as plasticisers in polymers. The citation of some phthalates as ’substances of very high concern’ within the EU REACH regulation, and bans on some lower-boiling homologues, has resulted in a recent shift towards the use of higher-boiling phthalate additives; these are less prone to migration from products into the surrounding environment.

Thermal desorption for polymer testing

Thermal desorption is compatible with three common sampling techniques for assessing emissions from polymers:

  • Small chambers are well-established for collecting emissions from products and materials under a controlled environment.
  • Microchambers allow rapid screening of polymer products and sub-components with the chemicals collected onto sorbent tubes.
  • Direct desorption from TD tubes is commonly used for testing small quantities of relatively homogeneous samples.

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