UN Manual of Tests and Criteria Rev.7 (2019) and Amend.1 (2021)

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At its ninth session (7 December 2018), the Committee adopted a set of amendments to the sixth revised edition of the Manual as amended by Amendment 1, which were circulated as document ST/SG/AC.10/46/Add.2 and reflected in the seventh revised edition of the Manual (Rev.7). These amendments, include:

• A full review of the text of the Manual to facilitate its use in the context of the GHS;
• A new test under test series 8, to determine the sensitiveness of a candidate ammonium nitrate emulsion or suspension or gel, intermediate for blasting explosive, to the effect of intense localised thermal ignition under high confinement (sub-section 18.8);
• New provisions addressing classification of polymerizing substances for transport;
• Stability tests for nitrocellulose mixtures (new Appendix 10); and
• A compilation of classification results on industrial nitrocellulose in accordance with Chapter 2.17 of the GHS which can be used for the classification of industrial nitrocellulose based products (new Appendix 11).

In addition, noting that the work to facilitate the use of the Manual in the context of the GHS had been completed, the Committee considered that the reference to the "Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods" in the title of the Manual was no longer appropriate, and decided that from now on, the Manual should be entitled "Manual of Tests and Criteria".

Furthermore, at its tenth session (11 December 2020), the Committee adopted a set of amendments to the seventh revised edition of the Manual, which were circulated as document ST/SG/AC.10/48/Add.2 and collected in amendment 1 to the seventh revised edition (Rev.7/Amend.1). The new amendments adopted in 2020 include:

• Transport of explosives, including alignment with revised Chapter 2.1 of the GHS;
• Classification of self-reactive substances and polymerising substances; and
• Assessment of the thermal stability of samples and temperature control assessment for transport of self-reactive substances and organic peroxides.

You will find below the electronic versions of these two publications (Rev.7 and Rev.7/Amend.1), available for free for consultation purposes in the six UN official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish). The files are published on this page as soon as they become available for each linguistic version. To obtain an unprotected e-copy or a hard copy of the official publication, please contact the UN publications service.