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Some types of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) have been banned in the EU, but they are still present in many older industrial and household items, especially electronics such as computers and televisions as well as in furniture and textiles.
Studies have linked some of these chemicals to thyroid disruption, cancer and mental and physical development issues in children, while their release into the environment has led to increased concentrations in animals, particularly fish.
“The EU has introduced maximum permissible concentrations of BFRs in waste items, which if exceeded means these items cannot be recycled in order to prevent them from ending up in products such as plastic kitchen utensils and children’s toys,” says Stuart Harrad, a professor of environmental chemistry at the University of Birmingham in the UK.
Harrad is leading the ELUTE project, which is evaluating novel methods to efficiently test for BFRs in order to limit their continued presence in consumer products via recycling and to stop them ending up in land and marine ecosystems upon disposal.
The work is being conducted in collaboration with industrial partner ThermoFisher Scientific’s Persistent Organic Pollutants Center of Excellence in Bremen, Germany, supported by a grant from the EU’s Marie Curie European Industrial Doctorate programme.
“Our research will allow more cost-effective monitoring of the waste stream to ensure compliance with EU limits on restricted BFRs and thus minimise the presence of these chemicals in items coming onto the market,” Harrad explains.
Taking the measure of bromine
The ELUTE team, including four early-stage researchers from Asia, Australia and Europe, have contributed to the validation of a handheld X-ray device capable of accurately measuring the quantity of bromine in a product.
The system uses state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation developed by ThermoFisher Scientific and is being compared by the ELUTE researchers with data from other techniques such as ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry to evaluate factors such as accuracy and speed.
The X-ray device potentially overcomes many of the current technical and logistical challenges of monitoring compliance with BFR limits, notably the high cost and long time needed to conduct conventional laboratory tests that cannot be carried out on-site at waste handling facilities.
Technology to guide regulatory approaches to BFRs
While the technology evaluated within ELUTE is capable of detecting the presence of bromine, it cannot specifically detect BFRs or differentiate between BFR types.
“Because bromine is not always due to the presence of a BFR that is restricted, a high bromine level does not necessarily mean that an item exceeds the maximum permissible concentration, resulting in false positives,” Harrad says.
ELUTE is studying the frequency of such false positives that could lead to an item being incorrectly identified as exceeding legislative limits.
“This knowledge could help regulators develop pragmatic approaches to preventing articles containing restricted BFRs from entering the waste stream. For example, if false positives are only a rare occurrence, it may be practical to adopt a conservative approach whereby articles exceeding the limit for bromine are assumed to also exceed the limit for restricted BFRs.”
The ELUTE research is expected to feed into national and EU strategies for developing faster, cheaper methods for testing waste consumer electronics and furnishings for compliance with EU limits on the content of restricted chemicals. It has already led to an ongoing project, called WAFER, with the Environmental Protection Agency of Ireland to conduct on-site tests for BFRs at recycling facilities and other waste handling facilities.
With an estimated 20 to 50 million tonnes of waste from electrical and electronic goods generated each year around the world, efficient and cost-effective testing for BFRs, if used widely, will make a significant contribution to a cleaner, safer and healthier environment.