オイルゲル化剤「デキストリン脂肪酸エステル」,「(ベヘン酸/エイコサン二酸)グリセリル」の応用 (特集 ゲル化剤の特性・評価と製品化への応用)

Abstract

Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) are commonly used as flame retardants in plastics. The use of these two compounds in electric appliances will be banned in 2007 by the EU Directives on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances (RoHS) in electrical and electronic equipment. In Japan, the use of PBB was banned and that of PBDE diminished in the early 1990s by the self-imposed controls of the Japanese Flame Retardants Conference (Akutu and Hori, 2004). In Japan, the predominantly used organic flame retardants were tetrabromobisphenol A and organophosphate compounds. Tetrabromobisphenol A has been reported to disrupt endocrine systems (Kitamura et al., 2005), and some organophosphate flame retardants were recently reported to have neurochemical hazardous effects. Furthermore, organophosphate compounds were suspected to cause endocrine-disrupting effects (Fang et al., 2003; Ohyama et al., 2005) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Winrow et al., 2003). In this study, organophosphate and polybrominated flame retardants were surveyed in indoor environments in Tokyo.