The eight major heavy metals in toys EU standards and Canadian standard methods

Introduction
Where does the “poison” of children’s toys exist? Most of them are found in paint. Some domestic companies have two sets of standards for children’s toys. The export standards are very high and use non-toxic and harmless raw materials, while low-cost hazardous raw materials are used for domestic sales. Most of my country’s color toys have heavy metals that have passed EU standards, and children’s toys made of recycled plastic have multiple metal standards. Building blocks, baby carriages, tin toys and other toys are coated with various paints or coatings. When the harmful metals in these paints or coatings such as lead, chromium, antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, and mercury are marked, it will cause damage to children’s health. The surface coating may bring heavy metals into the body under the contact friction of the human body or the action of a suitable solvent, that is to say, heavy metals can migrate into the human body through a suitable medium.

The brighter the color is, the higher the content of heavy metals. Children’s toys are generally rich in colors and bright. When consumers buy children’s toys, they are also easily attracted by the beautiful shapes and brilliant colors. Industry insiders pointed out that the brighter the paint color of children’s toys, the more heavy metals such as lead contained, which is mainly caused by the lead compounds contained in the paint pigments, such as yellow lead, red lead, and white lead. Because it can keep the paint color bright for a long time, the brighter the paint, the more likely it is to contain a large amount of lead.

National toy standards restrict the eight heavy metal elements in coatings
ASTM F 963: 2008 (United States)

Antimony (Sb)	Arsenic (As)	Barium (Ba)	Cadmium (Cd)	Chromium (Cr)	Lead (Pb)	Mercury (Hg)	Selenium （Se）
60	25	1000	75	60	90	60	500

Lead: 0.06% (600ppm)

EN71-3 (European Union)
The limit of toy material element migration:

element		Sb	As	Ba	Cd	Cr	Pb	Hg	Se
High limit of transferred elements per mg/kg toy material	Any toy materials listed in the article, except modeling clay, finger paint	60	25	1000	75	60	90	60	500
	Modeling clay and finger paint	60	25	250	50	25	90	25	500

CHPA (Canada SOR/2016-195 Regulation)
Lead: 600mk/kg
Mercury: 0 (no mercury is allowed)
Antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, and selenium that migrate (in a 5% hydrochloric acid solution, shake for 10 minutes at 20°C), but 0.1%.

GB6673-2003 (China)

Toy material	Element (mg/kg)
	Sb	As	Ba	Cd	Cr	Pb	Hg	Se
Toy materials other than modeling clay and finger paint	60	25	1000	75	60	90	60	500
Modeling clay and finger paint	60	25	250	50	25	90	25	500

Our country is one of the world’s leading exporters of toys, and the quality, safety and hygiene of exported toys directly involve personal health issues, especially the harmful heavy metal elements in toys will endanger the physical and mental health of children. Therefore, mandatory inspection of harmful heavy metal elements in toys is particularly important. At present, people have conducted extensive research on the analysis methods of toys, and the use of LISUN EDX-2 RoHS Tester to analyze and test harmful heavy metal elements in toys is a more widely used method. Because RoHs Tester measures multiple elements at the same time, the analysis speed is fast, the detection limit is low, and the linear range is wide. This has very important practical significance for the spectral analysis and research process of daily inspection of toys. There are two types of test methods. There will be significant differences in the results of the test with reference to the EU standard and the Canadian standard. Therefore, it is particularly important to compare the results of the two test methods.

Factors affecting parameters:
Influence of power
The intensity of most elements increases with the increase of power, but the signal-to-background ratio decreases when the power increases to a certain degree, and it is easy to burn the torch at the same time. Comprehensive consideration is more appropriate to choose 900W.

Auxiliary air flow
Considering that some toy samples contain organic components, which can easily destroy the heat balance during combustion and cause the torch tube to burn, the argon auxiliary gas flow rate is selected as 0.6L/min.

The effect of acidity
Since the acidity of the pre-processed samples of toys is determined in strict accordance with the ASTM standard or the EN71 standard, the influence of acidity is not considered.

Observe the effect of height
Use Mn (wavelength 257.61nm) to adjust the observation height, adjust the best observation area as the measurement observation height.

Drawing of calibration curve
Prepare the standard solutions into a series of standard solutions, use pure water as a blank, and draw the calibration curve of each element.

Choice of microwave digestion program
Taking into account the organic characteristics of the sample, choosing a suitable microwave digestion program has better digestion effects and protection of the microwave tank. By trying different digestion procedures and observing the digestion effects, the parameters of the digestion procedure are determined as follows:

Step	Temperature（℃）	Pressure range（Psi）	Time（S）
1	100	20	300
2	120	30	300
3	160	50	500
4	200	80	400

Sample analysis and structure comparison
According to the method proposed in this article, the toy coating samples were processed and analyzed in accordance with EU standards and Canadian standards. The analysis and test results are shown in the following table.

element	EU standard test result (mg/kg)	Canadian standard test result (mg/kg)
As	Not Detected	Not Detected
Sb	Not Detected	Not Detected
Ba	929.3	475.6
Se	Not Detected	Not Detected
Pb	Not Detected	0.4
Cd	Not Detected	Not Detected
Cr	6.9	–
Hg	Not Detected	0.3

From the results, although the values of some elements were not detected, it can be seen from the results of some elements detected that there are obvious differences in the results of the determination of elements in toy samples using EU standards and Canadian standard methods. For the elements of the European Union standard, the test results are relatively high, but from the test results of the amount of some elements, the composition of the dissolved elements is low and belongs to the safety level.

Conclusion
Through the above series of tests and results, it can be seen that whether it is referring to the standard method of the European Union EN71-3 or the standard requirements of the Canadian SOR/2016-195 regulation, LISUN EDX-2 ROHS tester is used to analyze the spectrum of harmful heavy metal elements in toys. It fully meet the testing requirements of customers, and can be widely used in the daily inspection of exported toys.

Lisun Instruments Limited was found by LISUN GROUP in 2003. LISUN quality system has been strictly certified by ISO9001:2015. As a CIE Membership, LISUN products are designed based on CIE, IEC and other international or national standards. All products passed CE certificate and authenticated by the third party lab.

Our main products are Goniophotometer, Integrating Sphere, Spectroradiometer, Surge Generator, ESD Simulator, EMI Receiver, EMC Test Equipment, Electrical Safety Tester, Environmental Chamber, Temperature Chamber, Climate Chamber, Thermal Chamber, Salt Spray Test, Dust Test Chamber, Waterproof Test, RoHS Test (EDXRF), Glow Wire Test and Needle Flame Test.

Please feel free to contact us if you need any support.
Tech Dep: Service@Lisungroup.com, Cell/WhatsApp:+8615317907381
Sales Dep: Sales@Lisungroup.com, Cell/WhatsApp:+8618917996096

Tags：EDX-2