Halogen free wire & halogen bulb is not the same, is it?

[hugo_inside]

Spanish electrical rules don't allow for public places halogen wire but I don't know if for bulbs is the same rule...

Is not the same thing, is it?

[Aaronw]

I just did a brief search on google for halogen free wire. One of the articles states that halogen wire is being restricted on a global scale ( http://www.sei.co.jp/sn/2001/12/5b.html )

This might be a question Steve can answer. I don't know anything about halogen or halogen free wire (at least not at the moment, but I have a feeling that's about to change).

As far as halogen bulbs, I wouldn't think it would be the same rule.

[knightfly]

Missed this; "halogen free" is (as near as I can tell) another fancy "buzzword" for a simpler concept -

"halogen" can mean any of four known elements - they are Flourine, Chlorine, Bromine and Iodine - see column VII, here

http://www.lenntech.com/periodic-chart.htm

The main element in question for wire insulation would be Chlorine, since quite a bit of wire is insulated with PVC which stands for Poly Vinyl Chloride - Chloride is a form of Chlorine, and when wire salvage operations reclaim the copper in wire they BURN it; the insulation vaporizes at much lower temperature than the 1083 C needed to melt copper, so it's easy to separate the two.

Also, from a Belden wire description -
Insulation Material: FEP - Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene - In this case, it's Flourine; another halogen.

No doubt the vaporized PVC isn't something we want in the atmosphere, but I don't know enough about chemistry to know if the "halogen", or Chloride, is any worse for us than the Vinyl... Steve