Guide: Phasing out of PFOA and its related substances

A goal in POPFREE Stage 3 was to create an easy-to-use guide to identify PFAS based on their CAS number and provide up-to-date information on their regulatory status. The focus has primarily been on PFOA and its many related substances, which are included in the regulation (EU) 2019/1021 of the European Parliament and of the Council on persistent organic pollutants.

A traffic light system was developed to categorize substances listed in the OECD Comprehensive Global Database of PFASs (2018) in order to provide regulatory status for the specific CAS#s in the database. This guide can support industry in their work towards compliance with the PFOA regulation, which was indicated to cover over 1200 PFAS substances (PFOA, its salts and PFOA-related compounds).

The categorizations are associated with a high degree of uncertainty due to the limited scope of this project, for example subject-by-subject evaluation has not been possible and all categorizations are based on group-level criteria.

The next steps forward are discussed, including the development of digital tools, to support the manufacture and use of PFAS-free products.

The work on this activity has been carried out by the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute in collaboration with Volvo Cars, RISE and the Swedish Chemicals Agency.

Get access to the report and database here