RECENT DEVELOPMENT: EPA REVISITS EXEMPTIONS ON CLEANING CHEMICALS

摘要

Our metal finishing industries have been driven and changed by environmental, health, and safety concerns for a generation. The direction has always been-for excellent reasons-restriction or abandonment of some then-useful technology. On Jan. 13, however, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enabled an opportunity for change in the opposite direction.rnThe opportunity, one the EPA has offered 53 times before, is to use a chemical without the need to be concerned for compliance with volatile organic compound (VOC) regulations. The EPA's decisions in this regard are covered by the 1971 Clean Air Act (CAA). But in this case, volatility is not an issue; "reactivity" is the only issue. The EPA's decisions are based on the chemicals in question being exempted from VOC regulations, as these are nearly totally unreactive with sunlight in the atmosphere so that smog is not produced.rnPast exemptions from VOC status have been extended to chemicals of limited interest to finishers: trifluoroethane (HFC-23), 1,1,1,2,3,3-hexafluoro-propane (HFC-236 ea), and methyl formate (very toxic and highly flammable). This time, the decision was about two chemicals of potentially significant interest to finishers. The price of neither chemical promises "sticker shock."rnOne is propylene carbonate, an excellent solvent used in cosmetics, adhesive components, food packaging, plasticizers, synthetic fibers and polymers, and coatings.