Rubber Consultants now has ISO17025 accreditation via UKAS for an in-house NMR method incorporating BSISO21461:2006, Rubber - Determination of the aromaticity of oil in vulcanised rubber compounds.

High aromatic oils are due to be banned in tyres in accordance with EU Directive 2005/69/EC, 16th November 2005.

From 1st January 2010 rubber products tyres are not allowed to contain aromatic oils with more than a specified content of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polynuclear aromatics (PNAs). Some of these materials are classified as carcinogens, others are suspected of being carcinogenic, especially benzo(a)pyrene.

Rubber Consultants’ laboratories are able to test for aromaticity in oil samples, and tyre samples and also carry out sampling on whole tyres in accordance with BS ISO21461.

For more information please contact Sue Stephens or Colin Hull

As well as testing for Aromatic Oils to ISO21461 a GCMS method is available to analyse for individual PNAs, PAHs

For tyres the limits are as follows:

<1mg/kg for Benzo(a)pyrene
<10mg/kg in total for all the following PAHs
Benzo(a)pyrene
Benzo(e)pyrene
Benzo(a)anthracene
Chrysene
Benzo(b)fluoranthene
Benzo(j)fluoranthene
Benzo(k)fluoranthene
Dibenzo(a,h)anthracene

For more information please contact Sue Stephens or Mark Perkins