E I S: Assessment of epoxy resin ingredients

Due to technical requirements, it is often very difficult to replace epoxy resins with less hazardous epoxy-free products. That is why the Epoxy Resins working group has tried to systematically identify the less hazardous epoxy resin ingredients from the wide range of possible ingredients.

Formed as a sub-group of the Epoxy Resins working group, the E I S (Epoxidharz-InhaltsStoffe = epoxy resin ingredients) working group assesses the ingredients of epoxy resins. This working group tries to identify as many relevant epoxy resin system ingredients as possible, investigate their sensitising effects and describe these in more detail. As part of this task, the working group created the cross-sector sector EIS list of ingredients (in German), which is available as a download (PDF, 349 kB, accessible) .

As a result of the wide range of research projects the working group has been involved in, the sensitising effects of a wide range of substances have been determined and classified. Classifications of the sensitising potency and the associated justifications can be found in the final reports of the two research projects FF-FP0324 and FF-FP0384.

The FF-FP0384 project also included the development of a methodology for identifying and developing less hazardous epoxy resin systems. The aim of this methodology is to enable assessment of the entire system, while also enabling appropriate consideration of the individual ingredients. Based on the effect factor model of the Technical Rules for Hazardous Substances TRGS 600 (ranking of the sensitising effect of substances according to their classification), which has unfortunately been retracted, a process was developed to differentiate between the sensitising potency of different epoxy resin systems. The theoretical foundations for the assessment methodology can be found in the final report for FP-0384.