New Mercury Exemption

Measuring industrial fluid viscosity

The EU RoHS Directive currently restricts the use of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, DEHP, BBP, DIBP, and DBP in manufacturing of electrical and electronic equipment. RoHS Recast (Directive 2011/65/EU) was published in 2011 and amendments (2015/863) in 2015.

New Exemption

As of July 11, 2023, an amendment was made to Annex IV focused on applications exempted  in the medical device and monitoring and control instruments categories.

According to testing facility - TUV Rheinland, on April 23, 2021, the Commission received an application made in accordance with Article 5(3) of Directive 2011/65/EU for an exemption to be listed in Annex IV to that Directive, for mercury in melt pressure transducers for capillary rheometers at temperatures over 300°C and pressures over 1000 bar.

The used pressure transducer incorporated in capillary rheometers, consists of electrical components and is an electrical measurement device in the scope of the Directive 2011/65/EU. The capillary rheometers described in the requested exemption fall under category 9 ‘monitoring and control instruments’ of Annex I to Directive2011/65/EU.

The exemption request applies to all eleven categories listed in the directive.

All eleven categories are given exceptions to this based on their categories in Annexes III and IV (Article 4).

This exemption is in force as of July 28, 2023 and will be applied from February 1, 2024. The exemption is valid through December 31, 2025.

Renewal of the Exemption

Industries that may need this exemption after the 2025 need to begin the process for renewing the exemption and submit the necessary application and paperwork for review. Common process is for industries to submit their requests to their industry associations and the industry associations will represent them to the European Commission and the Oko Institut for approval.

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Links

EUR Lex Directive 2023/1437

RoHS Exemption (mercury) Oko Institut

Capillary Rheology of Thermoplastics: An Overview

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