The IEC 62474 Declarable Substance List (DSL) was updated on September 3, 2017. The updated version (D14.00) includes the additional SVHC added to the REACH Candidate List in July (Perfluorohexane-1-sulphonic acid and its salts) and changes to two existing DSL entries and some maintenance to reference substance list entries, including:

• The nickel substance entry (nickel metal) is replaced by a nickel/nickel compounds declarable substance group with tenreference substances;
• The numerical part of the reporting threshold of Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD) was reduced to 0.01 mass% of article to align with the EU POPs regulation; and
• The reference substance name “Lead hydrocarbonate” was replaced by “Trilead bis(carbonate) dihydroxide” and the duplicate reference substance “Lead (II) carbonate basic” (same CAS, different name) was delected.

The DSL is used globally by EEE manufacturers, suppliers, and IT solution providers as a common list of substances that should be declared throughout the supply chain, allowing downstream manufacturers to access product compliance to substance regulations around the world. The DSL includes declarable substances and substance groups together with reporting thresholds and reportable applications.

Additions and modifications to the DSL  are listed in the table below

Additions and modifications to the Reference Substance List are listed in the tables below

Background

The IEC 62474 DSL is an internationally recognized and harmonized list of substances and substance groups that are regulated and may be constituents of electrical and electronic products and systems. Electrical and electronic manufacturers and suppliers use the DSL in their design and supply chain management operations to specify and control substances of concern. The list is typically updated as needed based on regulatory changes. For additional information about IEC 62474, see the article About IEC 62474. The IEC 62474 database is available online; the standard itself which specifies the material declaration requirements and rules may be purchased in the same manner as any other IEC standard — from the IEC webstore or a reseller.

 Additional Information

The updated DSL version is D14.00. The new and modified entries have a last revised date of 2017-09-03

If anyone is aware of errors or omissions in the database (e.g. a regulated substances that is not included in the DSL but has potential EEE applications) or a regulatory reference that is out of date, please send an email to ECD Compliance and we will raise the issue with the  IEC 62474 validation team.

For further information on IEC 62474 or for support on your substance management program, please contact ECD Compliance.

On December 14, 2015, the IEC Central Office rolled out some new features in the IEC 62474 database.  The features improve the usability of the database and also provide some new features to support the validation team that maintains the database.

The most significant changes relevant to users include:

• A new data field for “Reporting Level” has been added to each Declarable Substance List (DSL) entry (more detail on this is provided below)
• The Export button for the reference substance (RSL) list has been moved further left to make it more visible when a user has a narrow browser window.
• Users may now export the RSL as an XML file
• The header message at the top of the browser window that indicates that database status and version now includes a scroll bar to allow users to review the entire message when using a narrow browser window
• The substance drop-down has been narrowed by showing only the first 30 characters and last 20 characters of a substance or substance group name. The drop-down used to be over 200 characters wide due to some very long substance names. Narrowing the drop-down list makes substance selection more practical. When a specific substance is selected, the entire substance name appears in light grey just below the drop-down box.

The New “Reporting Level” field

Some of the reporting thresholds are quite complex and it’s not always easy to determine whether the reporting threshold applies to a material, a product part, or the entire product. The intention of the “Reporting Level” field is to clearly indicate the basis for the reporting threshold (i.e. what should be used as the denominator when calculating the mass percent for comparing to the reporting threshold). The “reporting Level data fields are currently left blank but will be filled in once the IEC 62474 validation team decides how to address the impact of the recent European Court of Justice ruling on REACH interpretation of article.

Contact ECD Compliance for information on how we can assist your business with setting up a material declaration system and conformity assessment procedures.

The IEC 62474 database will undergoing an update starting this Saturday July 11, 2015 to implment changes for maintenance cycle MC-2015-01.  The following information will be updated:

• declarable substances list,
• reference substance list
• developer’s table

There are no changes planned to the XML schema associated with this update cycle.

Updates to the IEC 62474 database are live updates; therefore the database will need to remain out of service until all changes have been made and verified. Extensive verification is performed during each maintenance cycle. The header message on the database will indicate when the system is out of service and when it is back in service.

An update to the IEC 62474 Declarable Substance List (DSL) and data exchange format was released on September 24, 2014. Voting on proposed changes closed on September 12, 2014 — all changes were approved. The DSL has been up-revisioned to version D7.00 and the updated XML schema and associated developer’s table are now version X5.00.

The DSL is an internationally recognized and harmonized list of substances and substance groups that are regulated and may be a constituent of electrotechnical products. Major electrical and electronic manufacturers and suppliers use the DSL in their design and supply chain management operations to specify and control substances of concerns. The list is typically updated twice a year.

Additions to the Declarable Substance List (DSL)

The most recent additions to the DSL are:

• Disodium 4-amino-3-[[4′-[(2,4-diaminophenyl)azo][1,1′-biphenyl]-4-yl]azo]
  -5-hydroxy-6-(phenylazo)naphthalene-2,7-disulphonate (C.I. Direct Black 38) (EU REACH SVHC)
• Diisohexyl phthalate (DiHP) (EU REACH SVHC)
• Diisononyl phthalate (DINP) (California Prop 65)
• The eight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) (EU REACH ANNEX XVII)

Direct Black 38 is a REACH SVHC that was added to the Candidate list in December 2013; however, it’s addition to the IEC 62474 DSL required further assessment and therefore was not added during the previous update in April 2014.

Of the four SVHCs added to the REACH Candidate List in June 2014, DiHP is the only SVHC that passed the IEC 62474 screening process as a possible constituent in EEE products above the reporting threshold. The other three SVHCs are intermediate substances which did not pass the screening process.

For the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) substances, it’s important to note that each PAH substance appears in two separate entries with two different reportable applications and reporting thresholds.

Modifications to existing entries

• Brominated flame retardants (other than PBBs, PBDEs, or HBCDD) – the reporting threshold was updated to more clearly indicate that the mass percent needs to be calculated at the material level (0.1 mass% of bromine in plastic materials)
• Chlorinated Flame Retardants (CFR) – the reporting threshold was updated to more clearly indicate that the mass percent needs to be calculated at the material level “0.1 mass% chlorine in plastic materials”
• Shortchain Chlorinated Paraffins (C10 – C13) – the reporting threshold was updated to “Intentionally added or 0.1 mass%” based on the EU POP regulation
• Perfluorooctane sulfonates (PFOS) – the existing entry is being replaced by two separate entries to reflect the different reporting thresholds for “Textiles or other coated materials” versus other applications
• Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD) and all major diastereoisomers – the reporting threshold is being updated to include “intentionally added”.

The new and modified entries in the DSL are shown in the table at the end of this post. The reference substances and the material class did not change during this update.

Changes to the XML Schema

A new class definition (“Threshold”) was created to pull together the reportableApplication, reportingThreshold, and aboveThreshold attributes.  The re-organization of the attributes offers signfiicant advantage in interpreting material declarations when more than one reporting requirement (i.e. DSL entry) is triggered. This issue is likely to become more common as reporting requirements become more complex and more DSL entries overlap.

The reportable application, reporting threshold and above threshold data fields were previously specified as indepedent attributes within the substance and substance group classes.  They are now grouped together into the “Threshold” class and clearly associated with each other to form a grouping of information that corresponds to a single reporting requirement.

In this way, multiple reporting triggers can be easily recorded for a substance or substance group.  This can occur, for example, when a given substance or substance group that has multiple DSL entry (such as Lead/lead compounds or some of the Phthalate substances) needs to be declared because multiple entries have been triggered. The multiple entries may exist in the DSL because of different applications and/or reporting thresholds. Although multiple DSL entries have been triggered, if there is only one instance of the substance then it would be reported only once in the material declaration file and all of the reporting triggers should be recorded with the substance.

As a consequence of adding the new “Threshold” class, attributes ACB067, ACB068, ACB117, ACB068, ACB069, and ACB118 are no longer required and have been deleted.

Changes to the Developer’s Table

The IEC 62474 Developer’s Table has been updated with three changes

• added “Threshold” class to replace individual attributes for reportableApplication, reportingThreshold, and aboveThreshold (see description above);
• modification to the wording and reporting obligation for mass, mass percent, material mass percent reporting obligations;
• clarification of reporting requirement for mass or masspercent information in product parts.

The working group that originally developed IEC 62474 clarified that the a user creating a material declaration should only provide either mass or mass percent information, but not both. Inconsistency between reported mass and mass percent values can create confusion as to which value is actually correct.  In some cases, differences may be inadvertently introduced due to rounding.  Therefore, the validation team has updated the obligation fields for mass and mass percent to modify the wording  to require either mass or masspercent but not both (to avoid potential inconsistency). The exact wording will vary between mass information for ProductID, MaterialClass, Material, SubstanceGroup and Substance.

The ACB032 and ACB033 entries in the developer’s tables now include comments to clarify that “When ‘ProductID Class’ refers to ‘ProductPart Class’, the Mass (MassPercent) corresponds to one unit of the product part.

The updated XML Schema and developer’s table are version X5.00.  Changes in the developer’s table compared to X4.00 are shown in red font.

Further Information

The declarable substance list (DSL) is available for download at http://std.iec.ch/iec62474. Entries that are new or revised may be identified by a LastRevised date of 2014-09-24 for the DSL and 2014-09-24 for the developer’s table.

For further information on IEC 62474 or for support on your substance management program, please contact ECD Compliance.

New and Modified DSL Entries (MC-2014-01)

The international IEC 62474 declarable substances list (DSL) and data exchange format was updated on April 9, 2014. IEC 62474 provides the electrical and electronics industry with a material declaration standard and an internationally recognized list of substances that should be declared by suppliers to downstream manufacturers.

Additions to the Declarable Substance List (DSL)
There were several additions and modifications to the Declarable substance groups and declarable substances and the reference substances. The substances added to the DSL are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Substances/Substance Groups added to the IEC 62474 DSL

The reporting threshold for the substance group “Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and individual salts and esters of PFOA ” varies depending on the application. If your material or product contains any of the substances in this substance group, please see the specific reportable applications and reporting thresholds in the online IEC 62474 database. A list of substances that make up this substance group have been provided in the IEC 62474 database under reference substances.

Note: The substance known as C.I. Direct Black 38, which was added to the SVHC Candidate List in December 2013, was not added to the DSL at this time, but may be added during the next update.

Modifications
Modifications were made to the DSL entries for Strontium chromate (Basis changed from criteria 2 to criteria 1) and Di-n-hexyl Phthalate (DnHP) (it’s inclusion in the REACH SVHC Candidate List required a change to the reporting threshold to include “0.1 mass%”. The typical applications for “Cadmium/Cadmium compounds” was updated.

Deletions
The substance “4-[4,4′-bis(dimethylamino) benzhydrylidene] cyclohexa-2,5-dien-1-ylidene] dimethylammonium chloride (C.I. Basic Violet 3)” was deleted from the DSL. The IEC 62474 International validation team reviewed new evidence suggesting that C.I. Basic Violet 3 is not contained in EEE products above the threshold and approved the deletion from the DSL.
Lead di(acetate) was also removed as a reference substance under lead/lead compounds. When Lead di(acetate) was added to the SVHC Candidate List, it was assessed in more detail and the conclusion was that it does not meet the criteria to include it on the DSL. Consequently, the substance was also deleted as a reference substance to avoid confusion.
The revised substance/material lists are version D6.00

Changes to the XML Schema

1. The sequence of xml element in the substance and substance group classes have been alphabetized for consistency;
2. A Unique ID element was added to the Substance Group Class allowing users to identify substance groups in their material declaration based on the ID of the substance group in the DSL;
3. Add a data element (UniqueID class) to Main class to identify name and version of the software tool used to create the material declaration (if used).

Changes to the Developer’s Table

1. Items 2 and 3 under XML Schema also required changes to the Developer’s Table;
2. Country information in the material declaration is constrained to use the ISO-3166 standard 2-character country name;
3. The maximum number of characters allowed for Substance Group and Substance names was increased from 128 to 2048. Some substance names are over 200 characters in length, exceeding the previous 128 character limit;
4. Mismatch between developer table and xml schema for Unique ID identity attribute
5. Multiplicity of the Exemption element within the Exemptions class was changed to unbounded to match the XML schema;
6. Date attributes that did not specify a date format were updated to “Date..8” for consistency
7. Multiplicity of the Attachment element (ACB079 ) in the BusinessInfo class was changed to unbounded to match the XML schema;
8. The string length of the “Query statement” attribute was increased from 128 characters to 2048 characters;
9. The identity code for Substance element in the Material class was changed to ACB121; it was previously a duplicate.

A few other editorial changes were made to the developer’s table to improve clarity.

The updated XML Schema and developer’s table are version X4.00.  Changes in the developer’s table compared to X3.00 are shown in red font.

Further Information

The declarable substance list (DSL) is available for free download at http://std.iec.ch/iec62474. Entries that are new or revised may be identified by a LastRevised date of 2014-04-09 for the DSL and 2014-04-05 for the developer’s table.

Information on previous updates to the IEC 62474 database is available here.

For further information on IEC 62474 or for support on your substance management program, please contact ECD Compliance.