Registration Dossier

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Please be aware that this old REACH registration data factsheet is no longer maintained; it remains frozen as of 19th May 2023.

The new ECHA CHEM database has been released by ECHA, and it now contains all REACH registration data. There are more details on the transition of ECHA's published data to ECHA CHEM here.

Diss Factsheets

Ecotoxicological information

Endpoint summary

Administrative data

Description of key information

According to REACH Annexes IX and X, endpoint 9.4, column 2, toxicity testing on terrestrial organisms shall be proposed by the registrant if the chemical safety assessment according to Annex I indicates the need to investigate further the effects on terrestrial organisms. Due to the absence of toxicity data for soil organisms, the equilibrium partitioning method was applied to assess the hazard to soil organisms.

Valid available data on acute aquatic toxicity show, that graphite is not toxic up to the tested loading rate of 100 mg/L. No sublethal effects were observed. Graphite is not identified to be hazardous to the aquatic environment. Following the principles of the equilibrium-partitioning method, this hazard conclusion is extrapolated to the soil compartment. Therefore, no further testing on short- or long-term toxicity to terrestrial organisms is considered to be required.

Additional information

The substance graphite is expected to be not bioavailable. This assumption is based firstly on its negligible solubility in water and in organic solvents and secondly on its molecular size, making crossing biological membranes unlikely. Furthermore, the crystal modification graphite is the thermodynamically most stable modification of the element carbon.

Therefore, potential toxic effects are expected to be triggered by graphite's impurities, which consist mainly of aluminium silicates such as muscovite and iron oxide but not by the substance graphite itself. In the environment, the impurities of graphite are present unlimited, hence derivation of PNEC values for graphite appears scientifically not to be justified for the compartment soil.