Author(s)

Marcio Antonio Ferreira Camargo¹, Antonia Marli dos Santos², Gilberto Orivaldo Chierice³, Salvador Claro Neto³, Maria Diva Landgraf³

¹Academic Unit of Passos, University of State of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
²University Julio of Mesquita Filho, UNESP/IB, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
³Institute of Chemistry of Sao Carlos, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls (polychlorinated biphenyls), are the generic names given to the class of organochlorine compounds resulting from the reaction of the biphenyl group with anhydrous chlorine in the presence of a catalyst. They are toxic, persistent, bioaccumulative and pose the risk of causing harm to human health and the environment. Large quantities of PCBs were produced in several countries between 1927 and 1977. In the United States the prohibition occurred in 1977. Due to high toxicity, production and marketing of PCBs have been banned worldwide since 1980. It was carried out at the Chemistry Institute of Sao Carlos—University of Sao Paulo, and developed a procedure for decontamination of mineral insulating oil containing PCBs values above 50 mg/kg. In the procedure, the contaminated oil was passed by percolation in a column containing polyurethane foam derived from vegetable oil, produced by the Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry and Polymer Technology (GQATP), thus obtaining a 55% reduction in the levels of PCBs.

Polyurethane Foams, PCBs, Insulating Mineral Oil

Camargo, M. , dos Santos, A. , Chierice, G. , Neto, S. and Landgraf, M. (2018) Polyurethane Foams Derived from Vegetable Oil Used in the Adsorption of Polychlorinated Biphenyls Present in Insulating Mineral Oil. Open Access Library Journal, 5, 1-12. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1104945.