Is There a Viable Alternative to Rcf?

Regulations restricting the use of RCF have been seen only in the European Union (EU). The EU classifies RCF as a 1B carcinogen, presumed to have carcinogenic potential for humans and strictly regulates the use of RCF in the workplace and requires substituting RCF where technically possible or minimizing. August 2010, the State of California enacted regulations following NIOSH criteria document (2006) for RCF by limiting the exposure limit in the workplace from the federally recommended 0.5 f/ml to 0.2 f/ml. RCF has long been viewed as a leading choice in high temperature insulation in many industrial applications. With health studies dating back to the 1980s, RCF has been studied and monitored by the University of Cincinnati and the Institute of Occupational Medicine. The first non-RCF high temperature insulation was introduced in the 1990s, Alkaline-Earth-Silicate (AES) fibers were found to perform as well as RCF in many applications.