Don’t we look at flashpoints?

You can’t really say that  below a certain flashpoint or MIE  you should avoid a particular substance. Its down to the risk assessment and how you apply the principles from DSEAR.

There are no generic MIE control bands for the dusts or solvents/vapours presenting an explosion hazard.

How to control depends upon the material in your process in your facility:

- engineering controls may negate dust or vapour cloud formation

- you may have DSEAR rated equipment

- the quantity generated from use may be minimal

Presenting an MIE value on a Safety Data Sheet is quite unusual, certainly not one of the specified headings under Section 9 of EU 2020/878 amending Annex II of REACH

 I think that some has their metrics mixed up. Flashpoint is a  physical characteristic of a particular substance. Digging more into the concept, MIE is a value for a particular mixture of dust and air and as such can vary with circumstances which is why you don’t have it on an SDS. https://web.archive.org/web/20190731163549/http://staubex.ifa.dguv.de/HTML-Dokumente/ERLT8E.HTM

Further to my original post - 

The supplier's SDS was the document that raised my initial 'curiosity' as there was a good deal more information about handling the product and fire / explosion issues in the text of the SDS than I might have expected looking at the numerical data and H phrases etc listed. 

This caused us to pause and reconsider what we were going to do with the product in question, ans whether or not we had the appropriate facilities to handle it safely. What has since been discovered is that this SDS seems to be an 'outlier' - none of the other SDS from alternative suppliers examined so far mention as many hazards in use. 

So, should we a) go back to the original supplier and ask why they are more 'risk averse / cautious' than everybody else seems to be, or b) work from multiple SDSs and make our decision based on mutiple sources or c) stick with the suppliers SDS and not carry out the work as we don't have the full capabilities required according to our original supplier?

Personally I tend to check SDS information against the ECHA database using the search function at the top of the landing page https://echa.europa.eu/

Whilst it only contains information on substances (rather than mixtures) it does give a second opinion to the data being presented by your supplier especially where there is a registered substance fact sheet present.

Trying to stack up various supplier SDS you are comparing the authoring software, how up to date the classification information is, how diligent the suppliers staff are and whether you have the correct market document.

Its not unknown for SDS to be in error. Another source to the ECHA database is a technical standard BS60079-20 Material characteristics.

This standard does what is says it gives flamambility data for a whole variety of flammable substances.

Stevedm,

Apologies, but to avoid identifying the two companies involved - my curent employer and the manufacturer / supplier of the material - I'm not able to go into further details. 

We have 'resolved' the matter by taking into account all the other information we can publicly access on the material .. .. I know this isn't a perfect answer, but I'm not in a perfect world

Thanks to all for comments and advice. P