The 49th Ultrasonic Industry Association (UIA) held its first virtual symposium April 26-28, 2021. APC International was pleased to be able to attend this virtual event. Despite being virtual, the UIA put on a wonderful symposium and the technical content presented at the conference certainly did NOT disappoint!
One of the workshop sessions entitled “Lead Free Ultrasonic Products: an update” was presented by Rasmus Lou-Moeller. This presentation contained information on progress and comparisons of various lead-free piezoelectric materials and PZT compositions and the current status of lead containing materials in electronic components and systems related to the RoHS Directive, as we have been following. Mr. Lou-Moeller has also been involved directly with the “Umbrella Project”. (for more information on Umbrella Project please see the Newsletter Archive or follow THIS LINK to the February’s newsletter directly.)
Mr. Lou-Moeller’s Lead-free and RoHS update was quite extensive and included the following:
A listing of products that were outside of the RoHS scope – some examples of which are military applications, space applications, transportation applications, and certain medical applications. (a complete list is widely available by internet search)
A discussion of the European/Japanese Electronics Industry’s “Umbrella Project” that presents supportive input to the RoHS Committee on hazardous material containing products. The Umbrella Project was initiated in 2013.
RoHS 2 contains 11 categories of products, only two of which, 8 and 9, have RoHS2 review intervals of 7 years. For all other applications and categories, the maximum RoHS2 review interval is 5 years.
The organization contracted to propose revised versions of the RoHS2 exemptions is Oeko-Institut/Fraunhofer IZM. A listing of the expiration dates for various EEE categories ranging from 2021-2024 was presented.
Mr. Lou-Moeller also presented data on PZT materials compared to a variety of lead-free materials and commented of the advantages and disadvantages of these materials.
Ultimately, the current status of Exemption 7c remains in limbo. There were several requests for the existing exemption to be renewed by various companies and the Umbrella Group in the 2019 time frame.
The RoHS2 Commission decision on these requests will result in either a new extension date for Exemption 7c, or a rejection with a defined transition period leading to the end of Exemption 7c. A decision is expected by January 2022 (which is actually 6 months beyond the current expiration but falls in line with their decision deadline). In the event of a 7c rejection, defined periods for transition would put the “effective” expiration of the 7c exemption well into 2023.
The UIA expects to have the proceedings of the 49th UIA Symposium available for a modest charge on its website www.ultrasonics.org by the end of June 2021. At this date, the complete workshop presented by Mr. Lou-Moeller along with other workshops, the industrial high power, and the medical sessions will be available for viewing.