Talk:Octabromodiphenyl ether

Commercial OBDE versus pure OBDE
The article can be confusing: OctaBDE is a technical mixture of different congeners. refers to the formulation available in the market, while the structural formula corresponds to the pure chemical compound "octabromodiphenyl ether". I would change the wording to: Commercial OctaBDE (also known as "octabrom" or simply "octa") is a technical mixture of different congeners. Going further, perhaps "Commercial OBDE" should be given its own section, detailing the composition of the mixture. I have found the following information: [...] approximately 10-12% hexabrominated diphenyl ethers (HxBDE), 44% heptabrominated diphenyl ethers, 31-35% OBDE, 10-11% NBDE, and < 1% DBDE (WHO 1994). It is not clear whether any pentaBDEs are present in the commercial OBDE products.  and: Typically, the commercially significant Octabroms contain 0-2 weight percent pentabromodiphenyl oxide 5-15 weight percent hexabromodiphenyl oxide, 40-55 weight percent heptabromodiphenyl oxide, 30-40 weight percent octabromodiphenyl oxide, 5-15 weight percent nonabromodipnenyl oxide, and 0-2 weight percent decabromodiphenyl oxide.  Perhaps the composition should be represented as a pie-chart instead of a list, due to the uncertainties. I'm waiting for opinions. --Agent Fog 14:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi AgentFog. You won't probably get many opinions as the topic is too specific. I'm the only contributor to the article until now, so I would be happy, if you could make the changes as you suggested. The currently best publication about the congener composition is probably
 * La Guardia, M. J., R. C. Hale and E. Harvey (2006). "Detailed polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) congener composition of the widely used penta-, octa-, and deca-PBDE technical flame-retardant mixtures." Environmental Science & Technology 40(20): 6247–6254.
 * but also the DRAFT RISK PROFILE For Commercial Octabromodiphenyl Ether is worth reading. --Leyo 19:12, 8 August 2007 (UTC)