UK has added PFHxS to its POPs Regulations
On 15 November 2023, UK's POPs Regulations were amended to ‘the Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023’, applying to England, Wales, and Scotland.
Scope
At the end of the original Regulations, the following new row was added:
‘Perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), its salts, and PFHxS-related compounds’, which means the following:
(i) perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), including branched isomers;
(ii) its salts;
(iii) any substance that contains the chemical moiety C6F13SO2- as one of its structural elements and that potentially degrades to PFHxS.
Limits
|
Case |
Limit |
For |
|
(a) |
≤ 0.025 mg/kg (0.0000025% by weight) |
sum of the concentrations of PFHxS and any of its salts present in a substance, mixture or article |
|
(b) |
≤ 1 mg/kg (0.0001% by weight) |
sum of the concentrations of any PFHxS-related compounds present in a substance, mixture or article |
|
(c) |
≤ 0.1 mg/kg (0.00001% by weight) |
sum of the concentrations of PFHxS, any of its salts, and any PFHxS-related compounds present in concentrated fire-fighting foam mixtures that are to be used or are used in the production of other fire-fighting foam mixtures. |
Effective Date
The updated Regulations came into force on 16 November 2023, the day after the date on which they were made.
Reference:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/1217/introduction/made
