Brominated flame retardants are chemicals that reduce the spread of fire in a variety of common products from fabrics to plastic. First introduced 30 years ago, they are now widely used despite minimal health testing, and they are rapidly building up inside our bodies. The testing that has been done indicates that brominated flame retardants are toxic to development and the levels found in some...

A retrospective analysis was conducted on air samples that were collected in 2005 under the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) Network around the time period when the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants came into force. Results are presented for several new flame retardants, including hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), which was recently listed under the Convention (2013)....

Since the 1970s, an increasing number of regulations have expanded the use of brominated and chlorinated flame retardants. Many of these chemicals are now recognized as global contaminants and are associated with adverse health effects in animals and humans, including endocrine and thyroid disruption, immunotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, cancer, and adverse effects on fetal and child developm...

This paper aims at updating the progress on the phosphorus-based flame retardants specifically designed and developed for fibers and fabrics (particularly referring to cotton, polyester and their blends) over the last five years. Indeed, as clearly depicted by Horrocks in a recent review, the world of flame retardants for textiles is still experiencing some changes that are focused on topics li...

We are all aware of the ubiquity of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants in the environment and in people; indeed, there have been several reviews on the subject (among others, see Hites, 2004; Hale et al., 2006; Law et al., 2006). In addition to PBDEs, there is a developing body of knowledge on the environmental presence of hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs) (see Covaci et al., 2...

The implementation of organic phase change materials (PCMs) in several applications such as heating and cooling or building comfort is an important target in thermal energy storage (TES). However, one of the major drawbacks of organic PCMs implementation is flammability. The addition of flame retardants to PCMs or shape-stabilized PCMs is one of the approaches to address this problem and improv...

this study was conducted to identify emission characteristics of certain hazardous substancescontained in the plastic of used home electrical and electronic appliances keeping in view compliance with therestriction of hazardous substances (rohs) directive and to estimate the possibility of safe recyclingpractices. according to the results, the concentration of cadmium, lead, mercury and chromiu...