News

GT-Engineering Offers Phthalates Testing of Plastic Consumer Products

Recently, the US congress passed a children’s safe product bill banning the use of six phthalate esters--either permanently or pending further study--in plastic products such as toys made of PVC. Phthalates are additives that make PVC products soft and pliable. The law will be enforced by the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) and will require a third party laboratory to do the testing. Products containing one or more of the six phthalates at concentrations above 0.1% should not be sold.

The laboratory will test for the three banned phthalates: di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate, dibutyl phthalate, benzyl butyl phthalate, and the three pending phthalates: diisodecyl phthalate, diisononyl phthalate, and dioctyl phthalate.

Analysis will be performed by GT-Engineering's PhD chemist.

The method of analysis will be compliant with CSPC rules, likely based on current methods specified by the Product Safety Laboratory-Canada, the National Environmental Research Institute, Denmark, and others using solvent extraction and gas chromatography detection. Samples will initially be scanned with infrared (IR) to establish qualitative levels of phthalates in the products.

For specific questions regarding the Analytical Chemistry facility at GT ENGINEERING, please contact Dr. Raja Atallah: ratallah@gt-engineering.com.

Presentations

Russel H. Jones, Ph.D., presented a paper entitled Accelerated Methods for Studying Corrosion Enhanced Enrichment of Surfaces at the Second Seminar on Accelerated Testing of Materials in Spent Nuclear Fuel and High Level Waste Storage Systems. The seminar was held in Tampa, FL January 31-February 1, 2008.

Publications

Materials for the Hydrogen Economy. Russel H. Jones, Ph.D., and George F. Thomas (Editors). CRC Press, 352 p. December 2007.

Leland Shields, M.S., M.A., Robert Scheibe, Ph.D., P.E., and Terry Thomas, J.D., M.B.A. Vehicle Design for Fire Safety and Evaluation of Design Trade-Offs (SAE 2007-01-0879). To be presented at the SAE World Congress Meeting in Detroit, MI, on April 17, 2007.

Greg Pierson, P.E., Robert Clark, Ph.D., and Ronald English, Esq. Occurrence and Mitigation of Arsenic in Drinking Water Taps in Public School Buildings. Presented at the American Water Works Association Research Symposium for Water Distribution Systems in Reno, NV, on March 3, 2007.

Vehicle Fire Investigation Course

Robert Scheibe, Ph.D., P.E.and Leland Shields, M.S. have developed a web-based automotive fire investigation course for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Course information is available at www.mvfri.org. They have also and published two papers that form the technical basis for that course in SAE Fire Safety 2006 (SP-1990):Computer-Based Training in Vehicle Fire Investigation Part 1: Ignition Sources (SAE 2006-01-0547) and Part 2: Fuel Sources (SAE 2006-01-0548).

Clifford S. Chamberlain, P.E.

GT Engineering is pleased to announce a strategic alliance with Clifford S. Chamberlain, P.E. Mr. Chamberlain is a licensed mechanical engineer with more than 35 years of experience in the design and installation of heating, ventilating, air conditioning, controls, piping, refrigeration, and plumbing systems. He has worked for commercial, institutional, health care, hotel, high-tech, biotech, light industry, and large residential building clients. He will provide building and mechanical systems consulting service.