EPDM Food grade / non food grade

[MichaelvH]

Hi all

We are having a debate regarding peroxide cured EPDM where we a few employees are saying peroxide cured EPDM is food safe and can used as an FDA compliant material; the other group are saying that peroxide curing does not make it food safe.
I lean more towards it is because the peroxide cured EPDM can be used in drinking water systems and to my mind if you have a material in contact with anything which can be consumed by humans it has to be food safe.
This is a new debate for us because we have always just gone through the motions when it came to EPDM and assumed it was food safe so we would be very interested in in everyone's opinion.

Thank you

 

[berkeman]

Hi all

We are having a debate regarding peroxide cured EPDM where we a few employees are saying peroxide cured EPDM is food safe and can used as an FDA compliant material; the other group are saying that peroxide curing does not make it food safe.
I lean more towards it is because the peroxide cured EPDM can be used in drinking water systems and to my mind if you have a material in contact with anything which can be consumed by humans it has to be food safe.
This is a new debate for us because we have always just gone through the motions when it came to EPDM and assumed it was food safe so we would be very interested in in everyone's opinion.

Thank you

Welcome to the PF.

What kind of company do you work for, and what is your interest in the food safety aspects of this material? What has the FDA said about this material? We can't give medical advice here at the PF, but we can discuss published data about food safe materials that have government approval.

 

[MichaelvH]

Thank you

I work for a company which does hydraulic and pneumatic seals; we do a large variety of industries including food and we use FDA urethane's and other FDA approved materials.
This is more of an in-house conversation; for an EPDM to be FDA approved it has to be able to comply with a fair few criteria but the big one is it has to be a good insulator but the carbon content in EPDM makes it conductive regardless. We use a white EPDM which is non conductive.
I just wanted some opinions on the peroxided cured EPDM (black) because both FDA and standard are peroxided cured; it was more of a discussion point.
When it comes to doing work in the food, diary and or pharmaceutical we have strict guidelines we have to follow and we have our materials which work extremely well.

 

[Dale]

I know that some peroxide cured EPDM materials are FDA cleared. The manufacturer should list that information on their MSDS and other documents.

 

[Kevin McHugh]

Hi all

We are having a debate regarding peroxide cured EPDM where we a few employees are saying peroxide cured EPDM is food safe and can used as an FDA compliant material; the other group are saying that peroxide curing does not make it food safe.
I lean more towards it is because the peroxide cured EPDM can be used in drinking water systems and to my mind if you have a material in contact with anything which can be consumed by humans it has to be food safe.
This is a new debate for us because we have always just gone through the motions when it came to EPDM and assumed it was food safe so we would be very interested in in everyone's opinion.

Thank you

In this case you need to know the law, not some one's opinion. Consult the Federal Register Part 178 for food contact regulations.

 

[Kevin McHugh]

I know that some peroxide cured EPDM materials are FDA cleared. The manufacturer should list that information on their MSDS and other documents.

FDA would be listed on product literature. It might be listed on an MSD sheet under safety, but it is not required by law.