Are there any existing articles, deep dives, or research around PCBTF? It is a supposedly “green” solvent used as a replacement of xylene due to its status as VOC-exempt, despite being similarly volatile.
It has all the hallmarks of being one of the wretched forever chemicals—fat soluble, denser than water (accumulates in groundwater supplies instead of evaporating), and heavily halogenated. There’s very little cancer and toxicity data, and what does exist seemspretty bad.The EPA has prevented employees from acknowledging the issue; (also see this article by the Intercept) to my understanding, this is because it is grandfathered as an existing chemical that has been in production for a long time (although usage has only increased in recent years as a replacement for “high-VOC” solvents, such as ethanol.)
This seems like a clear-cut case of replacing a relatively mundane solvent (primarily xylene, ethanol and others as well) with a far more toxic, persistent compound with far worse effects for very misguided reasons. Am I missing something there (perhaps it breaks down rather quickly in the environment?) or is this a rather neglected & significant issue?
Are there any existing articles, deep dives, or research around PCBTF? It is a supposedly “green” solvent used as a replacement of xylene due to its status as VOC-exempt, despite being similarly volatile.
It has all the hallmarks of being one of the wretched forever chemicals—fat soluble, denser than water (accumulates in groundwater supplies instead of evaporating), and heavily halogenated. There’s very little cancer and toxicity data, and what does exist seems pretty bad. The EPA has prevented employees from acknowledging the issue; (also see this article by the Intercept) to my understanding, this is because it is grandfathered as an existing chemical that has been in production for a long time (although usage has only increased in recent years as a replacement for “high-VOC” solvents, such as ethanol.)
This seems like a clear-cut case of replacing a relatively mundane solvent (primarily xylene, ethanol and others as well) with a far more toxic, persistent compound with far worse effects for very misguided reasons. Am I missing something there (perhaps it breaks down rather quickly in the environment?) or is this a rather neglected & significant issue?