Free calculator
Flash point packing group calculator
A finished eau de parfum is normally packing group II, not III, and getting that backwards is misdeclaring dangerous goods. Give it the flash point you measured and it tells you which, with the thresholds it tested against.
The rule, in words
A liquid with a closed-cup flash point of 60 °C or below is a Class 3 flammable liquid for transport, and its packing group is decided by two figures: its flash point and its initial boiling point.
- Packing group I: an initial boiling point of 35 °C or below, whatever the flash point.
- Packing group II: a flash point below 23 °C, and an initial boiling point above 35 °C.
- Packing group III: a flash point from 23 °C to 60 °C inclusive, and an initial boiling point above 35 °C.
The 23 °C boundary belongs to packing group III: a flash point of exactly 23.0 °C is packing group III. These are the criteria in ADR, the European agreement for carriage by road, and the sea and air codes are built on the same UN Model Regulations.
A finished eau de parfum that flashes at 20 °C and starts to boil at 78 °C is below 23 and above 35, so it is packing group II.
Why a perfume is normally packing group II, not III
Because ethanol and water flash low. Roughly, neat ethanol flashes around 13 °C, at 90 percent around 17 °C, at 80 percent around 20 °C and at 70 percent around 22 °C. A blend of the two does not reach 23 °C until it is down near 60 percent ethanol. A perfume at 70 to 85 percent is therefore normally packing group II.
Those figures are for ethanol and water, and a perfume is not ethanol and water. Fragrance materials, glycols and anything non-volatile move the number in either direction. Use them only to notice a measurement that is far away from them and check it again, never as the figure you declare.
Declaring packing group III for goods that are packing group II is not a paperwork slip. It gives the wrong packing instruction, the wrong quantity limits, the wrong transport category and the wrong excepted quantity limit. It is misdeclaration of dangerous goods.
Where the flash point has to come from
From a closed-cup measurement of the finished juice, at the strength it ships at. It cannot be worked out from the formula: a mixture's flash point is neither the average of its parts nor the lowest of them.
And never from the ethanol supplier's safety data sheet. That sheet describes the solvent. The goods being declared are the blend, and the blend is a different liquid with a different flash point.
The bottle size does not change it
A packing group is a property of the goods. A 30 ml bottle of an eau de parfum is the same packing group as a five liter container of the same juice. What the size of the bottle changes is which relief from the full rules is available, such as limited or excepted quantities, and that is a separate question with its own limits.
Nor is the viscous route to packing group III open to an alcoholic perfume. That route is for thick liquids such as paints and adhesives, it needs every one of four conditions at once, and a perfume fails the first of them: it pours like water, and the least demanding band still calls for more than 20 square millimeters per second at 23 °C.
What this calculator does not do
It does not estimate a flash point, and it does not decide whether a limited or excepted quantity relief applies, which depends on the package and the mode of transport. It gives the packing group from two figures you measured, with the thresholds it tested them against, and that is all a packing group is.