DETERMINATION OF THE CHROMIUM-VI CONTENT OF CEMENT - IMPLEMENTATION OF TRGS-613 - FIRST EXPERIENCES

TRGS 613 (technical regulation for hazardous substances), appeared in spring 1993, was the first German regulation to set a limit value oft ppm for water-soluble chromium-VI in cement. The analytical method des cribed in the appendix of TRGS 613 was checked; characteristic data ar e now available. Once the suitability of the method verified, the acci dent insurance institutions for the building and construction sector, together with the Berufsgenossenschaftliches Institut fur Arbeitssiche rheit - BIA, started investigating a total of 139 cements in order to get an idea of the proportions of chromium-VI in German cements. The r esults show that there are hardly any cements with a low chromate cont ent. Only 6 out of 138 cements satisfy the requirements; with only 2 o ut of 118, the situation is even worse in the case of Portland cements . The paper presents a survey of the analytical results.