Guide for Polychlorinated Biphenyl (pcb) Management of Insulating Oil in South Africa

What are PCBs? PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are a group of synthetic oil-like chemicals of the organochlorine family. It was first described in technical literature in 1881 and commercial production commenced in the late 1920’s. Until their toxic nature was recognized and their use was banned in the early 1980s, they were widely used as insulation in electrical equipment, particularly transformers. All commercially produced PCB’s are complex mixtures of many different congeners-PCB molecule containing a specific number of chlorine molecules at specific sites)