The Association for Safeguarding the Application and Use of Chromium Trioxide and Other Chemicals in Surface Technology

VECCO e.V

VECCO e.V. was founded in Seligenstadt on 9 May 2012 with eight electroplating companies and eleven participants.

The work of the Association, which seeks to safeguard the economic benefits of chromium trioxide and other chemicals as well as various chromates in surface technology, is based on decades of experience in the use of these substances. Mindful of the potential risk of using hazardous substances, the members are convinced that the careful and sustainable handling of the substances can safely avert such a risk. Doing so can safeguard the social benefit of these substances for the future, particularly with regard to surface technology in general and electroplating in particular. The Association emerged from an "Expert Consortium for the Authorisation of Chromium Trioxide and Chromic Acid", which was founded in 2011 following the inclusion of chromium trioxide in Annex XIV of the REACh Regulation.
The companies within the expert consortium founded EUPOC GmbH in June 2012, with the following principal aim: "The purpose of the company is to represent the interests of and to provide advice to small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the surface sector as well as to commercial activities". VECCO e.V. is also a shareholder. The EUPOC GmbH company created the basis for preparing the chromium trioxide dossier, for the further use of which authorisation in accordance with the REACh Regulation was to become necessary after 21 September 2017.
For legal and factual reasons, the authorisation applications were submitted to ECHA via HAPOC GmbH & Co KG, whose shareholders are members of VECCO e.V..
From the beginning, the work undertaken by VECCO e.V. and EUPOC GmbH focused on preparing the authorisation dossier for the substance "chromium trioxide and its aqueous solutions" as well as the "use of chromium trioxide in solid form and in aqueous solution of any composition to modify the properties of metal and plastic surfaces, with or without current flow"
and includes the following applications

• functional and decorative chromium plating
• stripping
• anodising
• dyes
• etching
• electropolishing

An application for authorisation was submitted on time in March 2016 (18 months before the sunset date) and the required substitution plan submitted thereafter. A decision will possibly be made in the course of 2021.