[Hallicrafters] Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB Oils - long)

[Barry L. Ornitz]

Rich Oliver (KC9GQ ?)wrote:

> Several years ago I noticed that a couple of my oil filled
> HV caps had started to leak.  I did not know how excited I
> should get about this development so phoned the engineers at
> Sprague.  They told me they have never used PCB's in any of
> their caps; PCB's were only used in transformers.  The tone
> of the fellow I talked to was of forbearance, like he really
> wished we would all get a clue and leave him alone.  It was
> his opinion that nobody ever put PCB's in caps.  Of course
> that was one engineer at one company....
>
> 73, Rich

That engineer should be fired!

Sprague's trademark name for their PCB capacitor filling was
Chlorinol.  Basically this was purchased from Monsanto as one
of their Aerochlor products.  I can say this with a high
degree of certainty as Monsanto was by far the largest
producer of these compounds (greater than 99%).  However,
relatively small percentages of the world's PCB's (over 1.4
billion pounds) were manufactured by companies in Austria,
China, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the
Russian Federation, Spain, and the United Kingdom.  The use of
PCB's for impregnating high voltage capacitors was ubiquitous
before 1971.  That year, Monsanto restricted their domestic
sales to closed-system dielectric applications (capacitor and
transformer dielectric applications).

In recent years, there have been so many lawsuits related to
improper disposal of PCB's that I am not surprised that the
Sprague engineer wanted to drop the subject quietly.  But that
does not relieve him from the responsibility of telling the
truth.

Lots of misinformation is floating around in the amateur radio
community about PCB's.  Identifying a potentially hazardous
material by some of the suggested methods is asking for
trouble.  Smell was mentioned by others in this newsgroup.  On
another list on old radios, specific gravity was mentioned
(most pure PCB's are slightly denser than water).  Neither of
these methods can be relied upon.  Under the law, even very
low levels (as low as 50 parts per million) of PCB's must be
treated as hazardous, and at best these methods _might_ work
only on pure materials.  It takes a laboratory to do an
accurate analysis and even here it takes a well-equipped lab.

PCB's were used in far more small oil-filled capacitors than
most of us imagine.  It is not a hard and fast rule, but they
were generally seldom used in oil-filled capacitors rated at
less than 600 volts.  But if you have oil-filled capacitors
that were used in high-voltage power supplies that were built
in the mid-1940's through the early 1970's, there is an
extremely high chance that they contain PCB's.  Surprisingly,
some common "dry" paper capacitors also contained PCB's.  I
have one reference where Philips used a high molecular weight
PCB (solid at room temperature) to impregnate paper for small
wrapped capacitors, the advantage being flame retardancy.

Chuck, N7RHU, mentioned several commercial capacitor
manufacturers and their trade names for their PCB oils.  It is
interesting that he mentioned Dykanol as the material from
Cornell-Dubilier.  Two weeks ago, I was consulted by an
attorney litigating a case involving a severely polluted site
originally used by CDE and later bought by another company
where power capacitor manufacturing was continued.  This
company, long since defunct, is accused of disposing of large
quantities of the contaminated oils by pouring them into pits
dug behind the building.  Cleanup will be quite expensive.

I am not 100 percent sure, but the oil in Vitamin-Q capacitors
was, I believe, castor oil.  Castor oil has a dielectric
constant of 4.7 as opposed to 2.23 for light mineral oils.
The dielectric constant of most PCB oils ranges from about 4
to 6.  Chuck mentioned several other manufacturers and their
PCB oils such s GE and Pyranol, Aerovox and Hyvol, and
Cornell-Dubilier with Dykanol.  I am including a list of trade
names and their respective manufacturers at the end of this
message.  I should note that several EPA websites have
duplicated my list which I provided them several years ago.
[Of course, to find where I am credited for this takes lots of
sifting through documents not on the sites!  Like most
government agencies, they suffer from a "not invented here"
memory loss.   ;-)    ]

As for typical amateur radio uses of oil-filled capacitors,
these typically fall under the "small capacitor" category,
i.e. they contain 3 pounds of less of PCB oils.  We can
continue to use, or store for re-use, these capacitors without
special restrictions as long as they are in a condition
suitable for re-use.  However, if they are leaking, they must
be disposed of properly.  Storage for disposal means in a
properly marked and dated, suitable container.  They must be
removed from storage and properly disposed of within one year
of being placed in storage.

While a single "small" capacitor can be disposed of legally as
municipal solid waste, disposing of several capacitors at one
time runs the risk of having to dispose of them as if they
were a "large" capacitor.  My personal preference is to place
any leaking oil capacitors in a tightly sealed metal paint
can, properly labeled and dated.  Most municipalities hold
one or more "hazardous waste disposal" days a year where they
accept paint, old motor oil, insecticides, etc.  I take the
paint cans containing the PCB materials to these events.  In
this manner, proper incineration or hazardous waste landfill
methods are used to get rid of the PCB's safely.

I wrote an article for the Old Tube Radios
(Boatanchors at theporch.com) list a while back on cleaning old
gear with leaking oil-filled capacitors.  Because of the high
likelihood that the oil is a PCB-containing material, it is
best to treat all capacitors as such.  I will repost it here
if enough folks are interested.

For those wishing to learn more about polychlorinated
biphenyls, their uses, and their health effects, I suggest
visiting the EPA and NIOSH websites.  You might also wish to
consult the Code of Federal Regulations for some of the legal
aspects of PCB's, particularly the cleanup and reporting
requirements.

If you have further questions that are specific, please
contact me directly.  For general questions, where everyone
might benefit from the answer, post them to the list.

I DO REQUEST ONE SPECIFIC THING, HOWEVER.  PLEASE, PLEASE DO
NOT QUOTE THIS ENTIRE MESSAGE OVER AND OVER.  It seems that
everyone lately has forgotten how stupid and wasteful it is to
quote every previous message, including entire digests, over
and over, ad nauseum.  This is a waste of bandwidth that Al
Waller has to pay for, and it is disrespectful to other list
members.  Turn off auto-quoting in your email reader, and
always remember to give a proper message title.  Lately I have
seen auto-quoting here that was nested at least six levels
deep.

        73,  Dr. Barry L. Ornitz          WA4VZQ
ornitz at tricon.net

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         PCB Manufacturers and Respective Trade Names

Trade Name        Manufacturer (USA unless noted)
---------------   -------------------------------
Aceclor           ? (France)
Apirolio          Caffaro (Italy)
Aroclor           Monsanto
Asbestol          American Corp.
Auxol             ?
Bakola 131        ? (USA)
Biclor            ?
Chlorextol        Allis Chalmers
Chlorinol         Sprague
Chlorphen         ?
Clophen           Bayer (Germany)
Clophenharz       Bayer (Germany)
Cloresil          ? (Italy)
Clorinol          ?
Clorofen          ? (Poland)
Delor             Chemco (former Czechoslovakia)
Delorene          Chemco (former Czechoslovakia)
Diaclor           Sangamo Electric
Disconol          ?
DK                Caffaro (Italy)
Ducanol           ? (UK)
Dykanol           Cornell Dubilier
EEC-18            ?
Elaol             Bayer (Germany)
Electrophenol     ? (France)
Elemex            McGraw Edison
Eucarel           ?
Fenchlor          Caffaro S. P. A. (Italy)
Fenocloro         ?
Gilotherm         ?
Hivar             ?
Hydol             ? (USA)
Hyvol             Aerovox
Inclor            ?
Inerteen          Westinghouse Electric
Kanechlor         Kanegafuchi Chemical Industry, Ltd. (Japan)
Kennechlor        Mitsubishi (Japan)
Leromol           ? (Germany)
Magvar            General Electric
Nepolin           ?
No-Flamol         Wagner Electric
Olex-SF-D         British Petroleum (UK)
Orophene          ?
Permatol          ?
Phenoclor         Prodelec (France)
Plastival         ?
Prodelec 3010     Prodelec (France)
Pydraul           Monsanto (UK)
Pyralene          Prodelec (France)
Pyranol           General Electric
Pyrenol           Monsanto (UK)
Pyrochlor         Monsanto (UK)
Pyronol           General Electric
Saf-T-Kuhl        Kuhlman Electric
Santosol          Mitsubishi (Japan)
Santotherm        Mitsubishi (Japan), Monsanto
Santovac 1 & 2    Mitsubishi (Japan)
Silkonyl          ?
Sorol             ?
Sovol             ? (former USSR)
Sovtol            ? (former USSR)
Tarnol            ? (Poland)
Terphenylchlore   ?
Therminol FR      Monsanto/Solutia
Turbinol          British Petroleum (UK)

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