GB/T 44652-2024Material declaration for electrical and electronic products - Requirements for the declaration of hazardous substances (English PDF)

1 Scope

GB/T 44652-2024 sets the requirements for declaring hazardous substances in the materials of electrical and electronic products. Every electronics company faces the same problem: proving that a product with several thousand parts from several hundred suppliers meets China RoHS, EU RoHS, REACH and a handful of customer-specific lists, when the information has to come up a supply chain that mostly does not want to give it. A declaration standard is how that is made tractable. This document sets the requirements on the content of a material declaration, the identification of the product, the part and the homogeneous material, the substances and substance groups to be declared and the thresholds at which they must be, the treatment of exemptions, the data format and the exchange of the declaration, the responsibilities of the declaring party, and the evidence and the validity of a declaration. For a manufacturer, a component supplier or a compliance team working in the Chinese electronics supply chain, this is the format the answer is expected in.

This document specifies the basic requirements for hazardous substance declaration in the material declaration of electronic and electrical products, including the principles for determining hazardous substances that shall be declared, the principles for determining reporting threshold level and the criteria on the declaration content. This document applies to the declaration of hazardous substances in electronic and electrical products. The declaration of hazardous substances in other related products may also take this document as a reference.

2 Normative References

The contents of the following documents constitute indispensable clauses of this document through the normative references in the text. In terms of references with a specified date, only versions with a specified date are applicable to this document. In terms of references without a specified date, the latest version (including all the modifications) is applicable to this document.

GB/T 26668-2024 Material Declaration of Electronic and Electrical Products

3 Terms and Definitions

The following terms and definitions are applicable to this document.

3.1 hazardous substance; HS Substance contained in electronic and electrical products that are harmful to humans, animals, plants and the environment, etc. [source: GB/T 37876-2019, 3.4]

3.2 hazardous substance group; HSG Hazardous substances of the same type that have at least the same chemical structure or chemical and physical properties, which may be one or multiple hazardous substances.

3.3 material A substance or mixture of multiple substances contained in a product or product part.

3.4 reportable application The intended use of HS or HSG, which is used to determine whether it requires a declaration.

3.5 reporting threshold level The concentration limits of HS or HSG that shall be declared in materials, product parts or products.

3.6 intentionally added The intentional use of HS or HSG to achieve certain property indicators.

3.7 hazardous substance list; HSL List of HS or HSG. NOTE: it includes HS or HSG in required declaration and optional declaration, and corresponding reportable application and reporting threshold level.

3.8 exemption The use of restricted HS or HSG is permitted beyond the threshold established by law or regulations.

4 Basic Requirements for Hazardous Substance Declaration

4.1 General Requirements The declaration of hazardous substance in electronic and electrical products is an important constituent part of material declaration, and its basic format shall comply with the requirements of Chapter 4 in GB/T 26668-2024.

4.2 Principles for Determining Hazardous Substances that Shall be Declared

4.2.1 When the following circumstances are satisfied, HS or HSG is in required declaration:

a) The current national laws and regulations or mandatory national standards of China clearly stipulate that the use of specific substances is prohibited or restricted in electronic and electrical products;

b) The current national laws and regulations or mandatory national standards of China clearly stipulate that the use of specific substances in electronic and electrical products needs to be reported or labeled; NOTE 1: the current national laws and regulations, and mandatory national standards of China include but are not limited to Administrative Measures for the Restriction of the Use of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Products and GB 24427, etc. substances generally exist in specific items or materials, for example, organic flame retardants generally do not exist in metal items.

4.2.3 Specific substances whose release or dissolution in electronic and electrical products is restricted by laws and regulations, as well as hazardous substances that are used in the production process of electronic and electrical products (such as: reaction intermediates, cross- linking agents, etc.) but do not exist in the final products belong to HS or HSG in optional declaration.

4.3 Principles for Determining Reporting Threshold Level The reporting threshold level of hazardous substance declaration includes not only the concentration limits specified by regulations, but also the concentration limits determined by industry standards. If the concentration of a certain substance is above a specific reporting threshold level, the supplier is required to declare the presence of this substance and report its concentration, regardless of whether the use of the hazardous substance falls within the exceptions / exemptions permitted by regulations. The principles for determining the reporting threshold level of HS or HSG mainly include the following circumstances:

a) Generally speaking, the reporting threshold level is the concentration limit requirement clearly specified in national laws and regulations or mandatory standards;

b) If due to different reportable applications, the concentration limit requirements for the same hazardous substance in electronic and electrical products specified in national laws and regulations, or mandatory standards are also different, multiple reporting threshold levels can be determined in accordance with different reportable applications; see Appendix B for the reporting threshold levels and reportable applications of HS and HSG;

c) For HS or HSG in optional declaration, the reporting threshold level should be determined by an extensively adopted industry agreement or standard; if there is no extensively adopted industry agreement or standard, then, the content of 0.1% of the substance in the product can be used as the default reporting threshold level.

4.4 Criteria on Declaration Content The content of hazardous substance declaration shall follow the following criteria.

a) HS or HSG shall be associated with the product and should be associated with the product parts or materials to which they belong.

b) The name and related information of each HS and HSG shall be consistent with the corresponding laws and regulations or industry standards and shall include the corresponding reportable application and reporting threshold level. The name of HS or HSG in optional declaration can be named in accordance with the international common names (for example, IUPAC name), and should be identified by adding the CAS registration No. NOTE 1: IUPAC name: compound name named in accordance with the nomenclature rules recommended by IUPAC for organic (or inorganic) chemistry. IUPAC is the abbreviation of International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. NOTE 2: CAS registration No. (also known as CAS No.): a unified digital identification assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service subordinated to the American Chemical Society.

c) If the HS and HSG content is greater than or equal to the reporting threshold level of applicable reportable application, a "YES" response shall be made to all such HS or HSG.