Dynax Corporation — Hazardous Materials Safety Interpretation

Page 1u.s. Department Washington, DC 20590 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration NOV 0 2 2011 Chang Jho, Ph.D. Dynax Corporation 79 Westchester A venue Pound Ridge, NY 10576 Reference No. 11·0242 Dear Dr. Jho: This is in response to your September 26, 2011 e-mail toCharlesKe.Ph.D.• Chemist.Sciences Branch, Engineering and Research Division, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). Dr. Ke forwarded your e-mail to PHMSA's Standards and Rulemaking Division for reply. Specifically, you ask if a concentrated surfactant solution that has a flash point of27 °C and a boiling point greater 100°C but does not sustain combustibility is excepted from regulation as a flammable liquid under the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR; 49 CFR Parts 171·180). You state the solution contains solids (40 percent), water, and some tert·Butyl alcohol, which is described as "UN 1120, Butanols, 3, PG II or III" in the HMR's Hazardous Materials Table (§ 172.101). You also enclosed a copy of a September 20, 2011 "Sustained Combustibility Testing" laboratory report, No. 11212, prepared by Stresau Laboratory, Inc., which concludes that the sample it tested "did not appear to sustain combustion at either the 60.5 °C or the 75.0 °C temperatures tested, which were raised to temperatures corresponding to actual barometric pressures at test initiations in order to compensate for the lower than standard barometric pressures as required by" the required testing criteria. It also describes these tests as being in compliance with the requirements of the HMR and United Nations Transport of Dangerous Goods Manual of Tests and Criteria, fifth revised edition (2009), Test Method L.2. Under the HMR, a material that is a liquid with a flash point ofnot more than 60°C (140 OF) meets the definition of a flammable liquid (see § 173.120(a)). However, if experience or other data indicates that the hazard of flammable liquid or combustible liquid material is greater or less than indicated by the criteria specified in § 173.120(a) or (b), the Associate Administrator of Hazardous Materials Safety may revise the classification or make the material subject or not subject to the requirements of 49 CFR Parts 170-189 (see § 173.l20(d)). After reviewing the test data and analysis submitted with your request, we agree that the "concentrated surfactant#

Page 2solution" you described may be excepted from regulation under the HMR, under the provisions of § 173.l20(d), as a Class 3 (flammable liquid) material. I hope this satisfies your request. Sincerely, "r-'7.dn~;L~~:---· T. Glenn Foster Chief, Regulatory Review and Reinvention Branch Standards and Rulemaking Division 2#

Page 3Drakeford, Carolyn (PHMSA) From: Foster, Glenn (PHMSA) /1t;mm(1/6 It- J./jvI~ Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 9:05 AM To: Drakeford, Carolyn (PHMSA) /1- &.2 r(2Cc: Supko, Ben (PHMSA) Subject: FW: Sustained Combustibility and Flash Point of liquids Attachments: Stresau-Lab-ReportDX2200.pdf Carolyn, Please log the attached in as a request for interpretation. Thanks, Glenn From: Ke, Charles (PHMSA) Sent: Monday, September 26, 2011 2:05 PM To: Supko, Ben (PHMSA); Foster, Glenn (PHMSA) Cc: Ke, Charles (PHMSA) Subject: FW: Sustained Combustibility and Flash Point of liquids This gentlemean need a formal interpretation on flammable liquid. Please give him a response. Charles Ke From: Chang Jho [mailto:chang.jho@dynaxcorp.com] Sent: Monday, September 26, 2011 11:26 AM To: Ke, Charles (PHMSA) Cc: Steve Borsody Subject: Sustained Combustibility and Flash Point of liquids Dear Dr. Ke, Tom Basham at Stresau Lab in Wisconsin referred me to you. We recently submitted to the lab one of our products called DX2200, basically a concentrated (40% solids) surfactant solution in water containing some t-butanol, for Sustained Combustibility Test based on the UN Transport of Dangerous Goods-Manual of Test and Criteria and US 49CFR. We submitted the sample to determine if it is considered flammable for transportation purposes under the regulations. As you know, both the UN and 49CFR standards allow exceptions to the classification of flammable liquids (Class 3) which is based on the flash point. According to the above standards, "liquids with a flash pOint greater than 35°C that do not sustain combustion" are exceptions to the Class 3 definition of a flammable liquid, i.e. a liquid having a flash point of <;;;;: 60.S°C. Our product, again, is a highly concentrated water-based surfactant solution with the following characteristics: · Flash point: 27°C (mainly due to the presence of t-butanol) · Boiling pOint: >100oC · Does not support sustained combustibility according to the test protocols of the UN and 49CFR standards. In fact, you cannot torch the product to induce combustion. (I attached the test report from Stresau Lab.) According to the test results, we believe our product is not a flammable liquid despite its flash point lower than the 350C mentioned in the standards. We cannot find any relevance of this particular temperature of 1#

Page 4350C regarding the exceptional provision. It might have been derived from the initial boiling pOints for packing group designation. The question is: Is our product a Class 3 flammable liquid? We would 'appreciate it very much if you could render an official interpretation. Sincerely, Chang Jho Chang Jho, Ph.D, Dynax Corporation, 79 Westchester Ave., Pound Ridge, NY 10576 Tel: 914-764-0202, Fax: 914-764-0553, e-mail: !=hang.jho@dynaxcorp.com 2#