ACTECO is a private and independent laboratory that offers since 1977 testing and consultancy services, including chemical, microbiological and physical analysis, in the field of industrial pollution, safety and hygiene of workplaces and initial type testing of space heating appliances covered by the Construction Products Directive 89/106/EEC.
ACTECO offers its knowledge of normatives and technical solutions of environmental pollution control and health and safety issues of the workplace, providing technical assistance for evaluation and surveillance of conformity to regulations.
Equipped with modern and sophisticated instrumentation, ACTECO, with its quailified and reliable staff, is capable of facing and resolving the issues of our Clients. Testing is performed, as far as possible, with national and international test methods as APAT IRSA-CNR, UNI, APHA, EN, ISO, NIOSH, EPA. Quality assurance is garanteed by interlaboratory comparison: laboratory performance, along with result accurancy are monitored and documentated for tests and measurements for which accreditation is held.
Since 1998 ACTECO is accredited laboratory n.204 by ACCREDIA (former SINAL). ACCREDIA, Italian Accreditation System, is the Italian National Accreditation Body appointed to perform accreditation activity. Accreditation is the evaluation and attestation of compliance of technical competence and professional integrity of the laboratory, in conformity to the UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005 standard.
Accreditation guarantees that reports on testing, carrying the ACCREDIA mark, are issued respecting the most stringent international requirements of conformity evaluation, including constant and rigorous surveillance of the behaviour of accredited laboratory.
ACTECO is also NOTIFIED BODY n. 1880 for type testing of space heating appliances on the basis of applicable harmonised technical standards covered by the Construction Products Directive 89/106/EEC.
89/106/EEC – Construction products directive (CPD)
ACTECO is Notified Body n.1880 for type testing of space heating appliances on the bases of the following harmonized technical standards covered by the 89/106/EEC Construction products directive (CPD):
- EN 12815 Residential cookers fired by solid fuel;
- EN 13229 Inset appliances including open fires by solid fuels
- EN 13240 Roomheaters fired by solid fuels
- EN 14785 Residential space heating appliances fired by wood pellets.
Type testing is necessary for the attestation of compiance with the requirements of the applicable harmonized European standard, which confers a presumption of fitness of the appliance covered by annex ZA for the intended uses indicated by the quoted above applicable normatives, allowing therefore CE marking of the appliance.
ACTECO can perform additional tests as emission of dust (Austian in-stack gravimetric method), NOx (nitrogen oxides), OGC (Organic Gasseuos Compounds) for the evaluation of compliance with the following national standards:
- art. 15a B-VG (Austria)
- DIN PLUS and BAFA (Germany)
- VKF (Switzerland)
- Flamme Verte (France).
REACH – Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC)
ACTECO has the experience and the technical instrumentation for the identification of SVHC substances included in the “Candidate List” of EU REACH Regulation 1907/2006.
The SVHC substances are used in many industries and their quntification is necessary for attestation of compliance with the 0.1% limit proposed by the Regulation. The most common SVHC substances are:
- phthalates, used as platicizers in many plastic polymers, and as additives to adhesives and printing inks;
- some brominated flame retardants as hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), used especially as flame retardant of polystyrene;
- hexavalent chromium, very common in metal surface treatment (electroplating), leather tanning, ink pigments;
- arsenic compounds, largely used as insecticide, fungicide, herbicide in wood preservation;
- cobalt dichloride, commonly used as color indicator in drying agents (silica gel).
Identification and quantitation of SVHC substances is achieved by GC-MS screening of volatile and semivolatile substances (phthalates, aromatic amines, PAH, brominated flame retardants) and by ICP screenng of elements (arsenic, cobalt, chromium, lead, tin).