Transport classification of hazardous substances: Explosive substances pursuant to the CLP Regulation and UN Transport Regulations (Explosive Substances)

Substances, mixtures or products intended for transport must be classified according to their hazard characteristics.

Explosive substances are a class of substances that get special attention. To deal with this problem uniformly on an international level, common test guidelines for the transport of hazardous goods have been established by the United Nations and defined in the “UN Manual of Test and Criteria”. According to this set of regulations, whether explosive properties may be present must be verified for all substances, mixtures or articles. In the case of potentially explosive substances, testing must be used to determine whether they may be transported at all and what quantities can be handled safely under transport conditions.

In UN test series 1 and 2, tests are carried out to determine whether the test substance has explosive properties and must therefore be classified as explosive in Class 1 (Series 1) or if its explosive potential is too low for classification in Class 1 (Series 2).