On August 8th, the European Commission published Regulation (EU) 2023/1608 in its official gazette, amending the Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulation (EU) 2019/1021 to officially include perfluorohexanesulfonic acid, salts, and related substances in the EU’s list of prohibited substances under the persistent organic pollutants regulation. The new laws and regulations shall come into effect on the 20th day after the official gazette is published.
Perfluorohexane sulfonic acid and its salts were previously included in the SVHC candidate substance list on July 7, 2017. These substances are now being added to the Stockholm Convention and will be phased out globally in the future. In March 2023, the European Chemicals Administration announced a REACH regulatory restriction proposal for over 10000 perfluorinated or polyfluoroalkane based substances, and relevant companies must prepare for market evaluation and chemical substitution.
Perfluorinated and polyfluoroalkyl compounds are composed of thousands of substances. Due to their extremely stable carbon fluorine bonds, these substances have strong chemical stability and surface activity, excellent thermal stability, and hydrophobicity, and are widely used in industrial production and daily consumption. However, this type of substance has multiple toxic properties such as accumulation, reproductive toxicity, mutagenic toxicity, developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, immune toxicity, etc. It is a type of environmental pollutant with systemic multi organ toxicity. Currently, countries are gradually controlling this type of compound.