Lead Chromate: Properties, Uses in Plastics and Regulatory Status

Lead chromate (chrome yellow, CAS 7758-97-6) is an inorganic heavy-metal pigment that gave plastics bright yellow, orange and red shades with high hiding power, and that EU law has removed from manufacture and use since the Annex XIV sunset date of 21 May 2015. Because three different substances are traded under the same name, the first question is which of them a specification or an old formulation actually means.

The status of all three is fixed in three instruments. Lead chromate, Pigment Yellow 34 and Pigment Red 104 entered the REACH Candidate List on 13 January 2010 as carcinogenic under Article 57(a) and toxic for reproduction under Article 57(c), they sit on the Authorisation List as Annex XIV entries 10, 11 and 12 with a sunset date of 21 May 2015, and lead in a PVC article has been capped below 0.1 % by weight since 29 November 2024 under Annex XVII entry 63. Lead chromate is one of 83 colorant pages in our directory of plastic additives, each with the same identity, dosage and regulatory fields.

What follows is the plastics view of the pigment: the identity of the three registered forms, the charge-transfer mechanism behind the yellow-to-red shade range, the 4 physical constants on record, the polymers it coloured, its behaviour as an opaque pigment, the dated restriction matrix, the harmonised hazard classification, the 5 lead-free pigments that replace it and the producers on the ECHA trade-name record.

Table T1. Lead chromate pigment identity card.

Footnote: identity data from PubChem CID 24460 and ECHA CHEM records 100.028.951, 100.014.267 and 100.032.496; regulatory entries from the EU legal texts cited in each section. Status as of 24 September 2026.

What Is Lead Chromate (Chrome Yellow)?#

Lead chromate is the lead(II) salt of chromic acid, PbCrO4, an inorganic pigment with a molecular weight of 323 g/mol that colours by absorbing light in the blue part of the spectrum and scattering the rest. Its recorded class is an inorganic heavy-metal pigment built from lead chromate with lead sulfate or lead molybdate, and its recorded function is a yellow, orange and red pigment with high opacity. The ECHA substance records for Pigment Red 104 and Pigment Yellow 34 describe use "in sectors such as the rubber, plastic and paints" industries, which is the formal trace of one pigment chemistry serving three markets. Which substances, then, does a plastics specification mean when it says lead chromate?

The answer sits one level down in the colorant taxonomy. Lead chromate belongs to the inorganic branch of the colorants for plastics family, where a pigment stays undissolved in the polymer and colours it as dispersed particles, unlike a dye, which dissolves in the melt. That undissolved state is what gives an inorganic pigment its hiding power, and hiding power is the single property that made lead chromate hard to replace: a strong yellow that conceals the substrate at low cost. Three separate registered substances delivered that property under one trade name, and each of them carries its own identifiers.

Which pigments does "lead chromate" cover: PbCrO4, PY34 and PR104?#

Three registered substances travel under the name lead chromate: lead(II) chromate itself (CAS 7758-97-6), lead sulfochromate yellow or C.I. Pigment Yellow 34 (CAS 1344-37-2) and lead chromate molybdate sulfate red or C.I. Pigment Red 104 (CAS 12656-85-8). Each carries its own EC number and its own Annex XIV entry, so a compliance check run on one CAS number misses the other two.

Composition, not particle engineering, separates the three shades. In Pigment Yellow 34 part of the chromate is replaced by sulfate, which lightens the shade towards lemon yellow, and in Pigment Red 104 molybdate enters the lattice and shifts the colour through orange into red. All three sit in the heavy-metal group of inorganic pigments for plastics, beside the cadmium pigments, and that group membership rather than the individual CAS number is what most regulatory instruments act on.

Why is it called chrome yellow?#

Chrome yellow is the historic trade name for lead chromate pigment, and the "chrome" in it is the chromate ion, whose charge-transfer absorption produces the yellow colour rather than the lead. The names Pigment Yellow 34 and Pigment Red 104 come from the Colour Index (C.I.) pigment names and numbers system, which indexes a pigment by hue family and serial number rather than by chemistry, so one chemistry can span two hue families exactly as this one does.

Is lead chromate the same as crocoite?#

Crocoite is the natural mineral form of lead chromate; the pigment grades traded as PY34 and PR104 are synthetic and differ from the mineral in composition, because they contain sulfate or molybdate. Our source library records crocoite only as the mineral synonym of the substance, so the mineral belongs to the identity of PbCrO4 and not to the identity of the two mixed-anion pigment grades.

How Does Lead Chromate Colour a Polymer?#

Lead chromate colours a polymer as a dispersed solid: the chromate ion absorbs the blue part of visible light through a charge-transfer transition, and the undissolved particles scatter the rest, which is why the pigment is opaque rather than transparent. A pigment is by definition insoluble in the polymer it colours, so absorption and scattering happen at the surface and in the bulk of each dispersed particle rather than molecule by molecule. Hiding power, the ability to conceal what lies behind an article wall, comes from that scattering, and scattering depends on the refractive-index difference between particle and polymer and on particle size. Why did one pigment chemistry cover yellow, orange and red?

Anion substitution moved the absorption edge without changing the pigment class. Sulfate substitution lightens the shade, molybdate substitution shifts it to orange and red, and the whole yellow-to-red range therefore came from one crystal family with one dispersion behaviour. Opacity in a finished compound is never the coloured pigment's work alone: in a coloured recipe the white pigment carries much of the scattering, which is why titanium dioxide (TiO2) appears alongside the colour in almost every opaque part.

What Are the Physical and Chemical Properties of Lead Chromate?#

Lead chromate is a bright yellow powder as PbCrO4 and as Pigment Yellow 34 and an orange to red powder as Pigment Red 104, with a melting point of 844 °C (1,551 °F) and a molecular weight of 323 g/mol for PbCrO4. Those 4 data points, appearance, melting point, formula and molecular weight, are the complete physical record for these pigments in our source library.

Table T2. Lead chromate physical and chemical properties.

The gaps in that table are deliberate. Density, water solubility and decomposition temperature are not recorded in our source library, so this page prints no value for them, and the OSHA occupational card figures of a molecular weight of 323.2 and a boiling point of 482 °F with decomposition are not carried here for the same reason. A melting point of 844 °C (1,551 °F) sits far above any thermoplastic processing window, which makes the pigment thermally robust as a solid but says nothing about the colour shift it produces in a given polymer.

Which Polymers Used Lead Chromate, and at What Loading?#

Lead chromate pigments were used in rigid and flexible PVC, in polyolefin articles and in rubber goods, which ECHA records as the rubber, plastic and paints sectors for both Pigment Yellow 34 and Pigment Red 104. Polyvinyl chloride was the largest of the three plastics outlets, because the same building and cable articles that carried lead stabilizers also carried lead pigments. At what loading did these pigments go into a compound?

Our source library holds no sourced loading figure in phr or weight percent for lead chromate pigments in any polymer, so this page gives none; colour loadings were set by the shade and opacity target and delivered through masterbatch. That delivery route supplies the one class-level number that can honestly be stated. The pigment reached the compound as colour masterbatch, which typically carries 40 to 65 wt% additive and is let down at 1 to 5 % into the base polymer, so the pigment concentration in the finished part followed from the let-down ratio. A compounder reconstructing an old recipe therefore reads the masterbatch specification, not the pigment data sheet.

Table T3. Polymers and forms that carried lead chromate pigments.

What Was Lead Chromate Used For in Plastics?#

Lead chromate pigments coloured 3 groups of plastics articles: PVC profiles, pipe and cable, polyolefin mouldings and films, and rubber goods, in every case where a strong yellow, orange or red with high opacity was wanted at low cost. The 3 groups are set out below.

• PVC building and cable articles, including window and door profiles, rigid sheet, pipe and cable sheathing.
• Polyolefin mouldings and films made from polyethylene and polypropylene, coloured through masterbatch.
• Rubber goods, recorded by ECHA as one of the three sectors of use for Pigment Yellow 34 and Pigment Red 104.

PVC profiles, pipe and cable#

PVC building products were the largest plastics outlet for lead chromate pigments, and they are also where the restriction bites hardest: since 29 November 2024 a PVC article may not be placed on the EU market if lead reaches 0.1 % by weight of the PVC material. That limit, Annex XVII entry 63 as introduced by Regulation (EU) 2023/923, counts lead from every source in the material, so a yellow profile coloured with lead chromate fails it on the pigment alone.

Imported articles were the reason the restriction was written. The recital to Regulation (EU) 2023/923 records that 90 % of EU lead emissions from PVC articles in 2016 came from imported articles, a figure that reflects an internal market which had already moved, because the EU lead-stabiliser phase-out tracked by ESPA and VinylPlus was completed in 2015. The full recipe of a rigid profile, stabilizer and filler included, is set out on additives for PVC window profiles.

Polyolefin articles and colour masterbatch#

In polyolefins the pigment reached the part through colour masterbatch, and packaging is now the clearest cut-off: from 12 August 2026 the sum of lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium in packaging or a packaging component may not exceed 100 mg/kg. That limit comes from Article 5(4) of Regulation (EU) 2025/40, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, and it is a sum limit rather than a per-substance limit, so a lead chromate pigment consumes the budget for all four metals at once.

Polyethylene and polypropylene articles outside packaging are not reached by entry 63, which is written for PVC, and fall instead under whichever sector instrument applies, RoHS for electrical and electronic equipment and the Toy Safety Regulation for toys. The authorisation position stays constant across all of them, because Annex XIV controls manufacture and use of the substance itself irrespective of the polymer.

How Does Lead Chromate Perform as a Pigment?#

Lead chromate pigments were valued for hiding power: they gave a strong, opaque yellow to red at low cost, which is the property a replacement pigment has to match. High opacity is the function field recorded for all three substances, and it is the only performance attribute our source library states even qualitatively. How heat stable and lightfast were they in a polymer?

No heat-stability rating, lightfastness rating or tinting-strength value for lead chromate pigments is in our source library, so this page names the test principles and reports no numbers. Heat stability of a colorant is the maximum processing temperature at which the colour change stays within a defined limit, and it is always polymer- and concentration-specific, so a single figure detached from polymer and loading carries no information. Lightfastness is rated separately, on the 8-step Blue Wool scale, where a sample is exposed beside eight dyed wool references and the step at which it fades gives the rating. How heat stability and lightfastness are rated for any pigment is explained on pigment fastness in plastics.

Table T4. Performance indicators for lead chromate pigments and how each is measured.

A substitution project turns on the difference between two shades rather than on an absolute rating. Shade differences between a legacy lead chromate part and its replacement are quantified by colour measurement and matching of plastics, which converts the visual gap into instrumental coordinates and a single distance value, and that number is what a customer approval is written against.

How Does Lead Chromate Interact with Other Additives, and Does It Migrate?#

The interaction that matters most today is arithmetic rather than chemical: Annex XVII entry 63 counts every source of lead in a PVC material together, so a lead chromate pigment and a legacy lead stabiliser add up against the same 0.1 % limit. The 3 interactions that decide a legacy formulation's status are listed below.

• Total lead content. Old PVC recipes combined lead chromate pigments with lead stabilizers, effective from about 0.5 % by weight, and entry 63 counts both against the same limit.
• Migration of metals. Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 requires lead and chromium to be not detectable in the migration from a plastic food-contact article, an article-level requirement no such combination meets.
• Nucleation and shrinkage. Pigments can nucleate semi-crystalline polymers and change mould shrinkage; in one study on PP coloured with an opaque chromium- and copper-oxide masterbatch, relative shrinkage in the flow direction rose from 49.5 % to 58.3 % as the masterbatch went from 1 to 5 wt%, against 13.6 % to 22.3 % for a transparent phthalocyanine masterbatch.

Those shrinkage figures belong to the study and not to lead chromate, which has no measurement of its own on record. Whether a pigment stays where it was put is covered on colorant migration in plastics.

What Is the Regulatory Status of Lead Chromate?#

Lead chromate, Pigment Yellow 34 and Pigment Red 104 have been on the REACH Candidate List since 13 January 2010, sit on the Authorisation List as Annex XIV entries 10, 11 and 12 with a sunset date of 21 May 2015, and are caught in PVC articles by the Annex XVII entry 63 limit of 0.1 % lead by weight since 29 November 2024 (status 24 September 2026). One cell of the matrix below is open rather than negative: the US TSCA status is not confirmed in our source library, and this page marks it as being verified rather than filling it.

Table T5. Lead chromate pigments, regulatory matrix, as of 24 September 2026.

Restriction entries, not substance classes, decide what a compound may contain. Entries 23 and 63, which limit cadmium to below 0.01 % and lead to below 0.1 % by weight, are set out with their derogations on REACH Annex XVII restrictions.

Is lead chromate banned in the EU?#

In effect yes, although the legal mechanism is authorisation rather than a ban: since the sunset date of 21 May 2015, lead chromate, Pigment Yellow 34 and Pigment Red 104 may not be manufactured or used in the EU unless an authorisation covers that specific use. Authorisation under Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 works substance by substance and use by use, so the legal text names no prohibition of the pigment as such and instead withdraws the default right to use it.

The gap that mechanism leaves is the reason the question keeps being asked. Authorisation controls manufacture and use inside the EU, while an imported finished article is reached only by a restriction, which is why Annex XVII entry 63 was needed in 2023 for imported PVC articles, and why articles in other polymers are reached only where a sector instrument applies. All three pigments joined the SVHC Candidate List on the same day, 13 January 2010, five years before the sunset date took effect.

What does REACH Annex XIV authorisation mean for lead chromate pigments?#

Annex XIV listing sets a date after which use is prohibited without a specific authorisation: for these three pigments the latest application date was 21 November 2013 and the sunset date 21 May 2015. The route from identification to prohibition runs in 3 steps.

1. Candidate List entry. All three substances were identified as Substances of Very High Concern on 13 January 2010, as carcinogenic under Article 57(a) and toxic for reproduction under Article 57(c).
2. Authorisation List entry. The substances moved to Annex XIV as entries 10, 11 and 12, which fixed both dates in one instrument.
3. Sunset date. From 21 May 2015 manufacture and use required a granted authorisation for a use applied for by 21 November 2013.

Registration is not permission to use, and the two records point in opposite directions here. Pigment Yellow 34 and Pigment Red 104 remain REACH-registered at 100 to 1,000 tonnes per year, while lead chromate itself has no active dossier, so a supplier statement that a pigment is "REACH registered" answers a different question from whether it may lawfully be used. How a latest application date and a sunset date work is explained on the REACH Annex XIV Authorisation List.

Is lead chromate allowed in PVC?#

No: a PVC article may not be placed on the EU market if lead reaches 0.1 % by weight of the PVC material, a limit that has applied since 29 November 2024 under Annex XVII entry 63 as amended by Regulation (EU) 2023/923. The limit is written per PVC material, not per article, so a multi-material product is assessed on its PVC components.

Entry 63 carries derogations, and each one has its own end date.

• Recovered flexible PVC: the derogation expired on 28 May 2025.
• Recovered rigid PVC: below 1.5 % lead until 28 May 2033, for listed profiles and sheets, decks in a middle layer, concealed uses, multilayer non-drinking-water pipes and fittings, with the marking "Contains ≥ 0,1 % lead".
• Closed loop: from 28 May 2026 recovered rigid PVC from the listed categories may be used only back in those same categories.
• Commission review: by 28 May 2028.
• PVC-silica separators in lead-acid batteries: excluded until 28 May 2033.

Entry 63 also carves out whole sectors, because their own instruments apply instead: food contact under Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004, electrical and electronic equipment under Directive 2011/65/EU, packaging under Directive 94/62/EC and toys under Directive 2009/48/EC, together with PVC articles placed on the market before 28 November 2024. Every derogation and deadline is tabulated on lead in PVC.

Is lead chromate allowed in food-contact plastics?#

In the EU the answer comes from Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 rather than from a colorant list: lead and chromium must be not detectable in the migration from a plastic food-contact article, which rules out a lead chromate pigment. Colorants sit outside the Union list of authorised substances altogether, so a compounder cannot look a pigment up there and read a specific migration limit; the Annex II metals are the operative requirement, and cadmium carries an explicit limit of detection of 0.002 mg/kg alongside the not-detectable requirement for arsenic, chromium, lead and mercury. The Annex II metal requirements and the scope of the Union list are explained on EU 10/2011.

In the United States, lead chromate pigments are not listed in 21 CFR 178.3297, the colorants-for-polymers rule, checked by CAS against the eCFR text current to 18 September 2026; clearance through a Food Contact Notification has not been verified, so this page states neither that the pigment is cleared nor that it is prohibited for US food contact. The full US list, with its per-pigment limits, is on 21 CFR 178.3297: colorants for polymers.

Is lead chromate allowed in toys, electronics and packaging?#

All three sectors are closed to lead chromate, each by its own instrument: RoHS caps lead and hexavalent chromium at 0.1 % per homogeneous material in electrical and electronic equipment, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation caps the sum of lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium at 100 mg/kg in packaging from 12 August 2026, and the Toy Safety Regulation bans CMR substances in toys from 1 August 2030. Each of the three is also excluded from Annex XVII entry 63 for exactly that reason: the sector instrument, not the PVC restriction, governs.

The homogeneous-material rule is what makes the RoHS limit strict, because the 0.1 % applies to each mechanically separable material rather than to the assembled product. That homogeneous-material rule is explained on RoHS and plastic additives.

Packaging is governed by a sum limit rather than a per-metal limit. The heavy-metal sum limit and its application date sit on EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), and because four metals share one budget of 100 mg/kg, a lead chromate pigment consumes it twice over, through lead and through hexavalent chromium.

Toys are reached through classification rather than through a metal limit. The harmonised classification includes H350 and H360Df, which makes the pigment a CMR substance, and the CMR and endocrine-disruptor bans are set out on the EU Toy Safety Regulation (EU) 2025/2509 page. Element migration limits under EN 71-3 are not in our source library, so no EN 71-3 value is printed here.

Is lead chromate listed under California Proposition 65?#

Yes, twice over: lead chromate is covered by the Proposition 65 listing of "lead and lead compounds" (cancer 1 October 1992; developmental and male and female reproductive toxicity 27 February 1987) and by "chromium (hexavalent compounds)" (cancer 27 February 1987; developmental and male and female reproductive toxicity 19 December 2008). Listing dates for every additive metal are on California Proposition 65, and the two group listings apply independently, so a warning obligation arises from either element on its own.

Is lead chromate banned in the United States?#

The United States has no authorisation regime equivalent to REACH Annex XIV, so no federal listing ends the use of lead chromate pigments in plastics articles the way EU law does. What applies instead is a set of separate controls: the pigment is not listed in 21 CFR 178.3297 for food-contact polymers, its TSCA status is an open verification item in our source library, and California Proposition 65 attaches warning obligations through the lead and hexavalent chromium group listings. A US buyer therefore reads three documents rather than one, and none of the three produces the single cut-off date that the EU sunset date produces.

Is Lead Chromate Toxic? Health, Safety and Environmental Profile#

Lead chromate carries a harmonised EU classification of H350, H360Df, H373, H400 and H410 under the CLP Regulation, which is the formal reason it reached the Candidate List on 13 January 2010 as carcinogenic under Article 57(a) and toxic for reproduction under Article 57(c). Those 5 codes carry the meanings listed below.

• H350, may cause cancer, and H360Df, may damage the unborn child and suspected of damaging fertility: the two CMR statements that drive both the Candidate List entry and the toy prohibition.
• H373, may cause damage to organs through prolonged or repeated exposure: the repeated-dose systemic endpoint.
• H400 and H410, very toxic to aquatic life and with long lasting effects: the two environmental endpoints that follow the pigment into waste and recyclate.

No endocrine-disruptor entry exists for any of the three substances, as verified in ECHA CHEM on 22 September 2026, so the Candidate List reason is the CMR pair alone, under Article 57(a) and Article 57(c). What a harmonised classification is, and how it differs from a notified one, is explained on CLP classification of plastic additives.

Two hazardous elements sit in one pigment, and only one of them belongs to chromium chemistry as a whole. Lead chromate carries lead, and it carries chromium in the hexavalent chromate form, the oxidation state that the Proposition 65 and RoHS entries name; the trivalent pigment chrome oxide green (chromium(III) oxide, CAS 1308-38-9) has no harmonised classification at all, so "chromium pigment" is not a single hazard class. Lead chromate sits on our list of toxic plastic additives beside the cadmium pigments and the legacy lead stabilizers, grouped by classification and restriction entry rather than by exposure, since no dose-descriptor or blood-lead figure for these pigments is in our source library.

What Replaces Lead Chromate in Plastics?#

Lead chromate has 3 replacement routes in plastics: bismuth vanadate for clean yellows, the complex inorganic colour pigments Pigment Yellow 53 and Pigment Brown 24 for heat- and weather-demanding parts, and organic benzimidazolone, quinophthalone and DPP pigments for yellows, oranges and reds. Each route carries its own regulatory record, and the table below gives that record per pigment rather than per class.

Table T6. Lead-free replacement pigments and their regulatory status.

Footnote: empty regulatory fields mean our source library holds no entry for that instrument, not that the substance is unregulated. Substance pages: bismuth vanadate (PY184), Pigment Yellow 53 (nickel antimony titanium yellow), Pigment Brown 24 (chrome antimony titanium buff), Pigment Yellow 180 (benzimidazolone yellow), Pigment Yellow 138 (quinophthalone).

Bismuth vanadate (PY184)#

Bismuth vanadate (Pigment Yellow 184, CAS 14059-33-7) is the direct lead-free stand-in for chrome yellow: a bright yellow inorganic pigment with high chroma and hiding power, registered under REACH at 1,000 to 10,000 tonnes per year and absent from both the Candidate List and the Authorisation List. Our source library records it in those words, as the lead-free replacement for lead chromate yellows, which makes it the only alternative on this page identified by function against the substance being replaced.

Its chemistry explains the match. Bismuth vanadate is the semiconductor BiVO4 and colours by band-gap absorption, a mechanism closer to chromate charge transfer than any organic yellow achieves, and commercial pigment use dates from the mid-1980s. It carries no Annex XVII entry and is not listed in 21 CFR 178.3297, checked by CAS. No price, heat-stability rating or lightfastness rating for Pigment Yellow 184 is in our source library, so this page compares neither cost nor fastness between the two pigments.

Complex inorganic colour pigments: PY53 and PBr24#

Pigment Yellow 53 and Pigment Brown 24 are complex inorganic colour pigments, calcined mixed-metal oxides built on a rutile lattice, and our source library records Pigment Brown 24 specifically as a lead chromate replacement in blends. Both belong to the complex inorganic colour pigments (CICP) class, whose members are calcined oxides built into rutile, spinel or hematite lattices and chosen where heat and weather resistance matter more than chroma.

Chromium appears in one of the two, and its oxidation state is the whole point. The chromium in Pigment Brown 24 (CAS 68186-90-3) is trivalent and locked into the rutile lattice, unlike the hexavalent chromate in lead chromate; it is registered at 1,000 to 10,000 tonnes per year and cleared under 21 CFR 178.3297 at max 1 % by weight of polymers, conditions of use B-H. Pigment Yellow 53 (CAS 8007-18-9) carries the same FDA limit and falls under the nickel group of Annex XVII entry 27, which governs nickel release in prolonged skin contact; its REACH registration route is an open verification item, so no tonnage band is printed here.

Organic yellows, oranges and reds#

Organic pigments cover the same hue range from a different physical starting point: benzimidazolone and isoindolinone yellows and diketopyrrolopyrrole oranges and reds have a low refractive index, so a formulation usually pairs them with titanium dioxide to reach the opacity a lead chromate shade had. Low refractive index means little scattering, which leaves an organic pigment transparent in a polymer unless a white pigment supplies the hiding power.

Two of them carry a full US food-contact record. Pigment Yellow 180 (CAS 77804-81-0) is a disazo benzimidazolone registered at 100 to 1,000 tonnes per year, a dichlorobenzidine-free alternative to the diarylide yellows, cleared under 21 CFR 178.3297 at max 1.0 % by weight of polymers, conditions of use B through G; Pigment Yellow 138 (CAS 30125-47-4) is a quinophthalone at the same tonnage band, cleared at max 1 %, conditions of use C-H, for articles not filled above 158 °F (70 °C). The full class map sits on organic pigments for plastics.

Why cadmium pigments are not the answer#

Swapping lead chromate for a cadmium pigment solves nothing: cadmium sulfide has been on the Candidate List since 16 December 2013, and Annex XVII entry 23 limits cadmium to below 0.01 % by weight in the listed plastics. The status of the cadmium pigments is set out on their own page, which records the harmonised classification of cadmium sulfide as including H350, H341, H361fd and H372, and notes that cadmium sulfoselenide red is not itself on the Candidate List. The PPWR sum limit of 100 mg/kg counts cadmium beside lead, so the packaging route closes on both pigment families at once.

Who Still Manufactures Lead Chromate Pigments?#

The trade names registered for these pigments in the ECHA database point to two producers, Dominion Colour Corporation and Brufasol, which appear behind names such as DCC Yellow 1025, Lemon Chrome C 4G, DCC Orange 5610 and BRUFASOL Yellow 16019. Two further trade names on the same record carry no producer in our source library, and this page leaves those owner cells open rather than guessing them.

Table T7. Lead chromate pigment trade names on record.

A trade name on a record is not a licence to produce. Buyers who meet one of these trade names in an old specification should check the total lead content of the finished article against Annex XVII entry 63 before assuming the recipe can still be produced, and the EU PIC Regulation applies an import notification to these substances. Producers of the lead-free replacement pigments are listed in the directory of pigment manufacturers and suppliers for plastics.

How Do Chromium and Heavy-Metal Pigments Fit into the Colorant Family?#

Lead chromate is the yellow-to-red member of the legacy heavy-metal pigment group, which sits inside the inorganic branch of the colorant family beside the cadmium pigments, the iron oxides, the ultramarines and the complex inorganic colour pigments. That group is defined by its metals rather than by its hues, which is why its members left the EU market on regulatory rather than technical grounds: the cadmium sulfides and sulfoselenides (PY35, PY37, PO20, PR108) followed the same route through the Candidate List and Annex XVII entry 23 that the lead chromates followed through Annex XIV and entry 63. Chromium itself is not the dividing line, because chromium(III) oxide green, CAS 1308-38-9, carries no harmonised classification and is cleared under 21 CFR 178.3297 at max 5 % of the polymer.

Legacy lead chromate in recycled PVC#

Lead chromate survives in the waste stream rather than in new recipes: recovered rigid PVC may still carry up to 1.5 % lead until 28 May 2033 in a defined list of building profiles, sheets, non-drinking-water pipes and fittings, provided the article is marked "Contains ≥ 0,1 % lead". The parallel derogation for recovered flexible PVC ended on 28 May 2025, and from 28 May 2026 a closed-loop condition applies, so recovered rigid PVC from the listed categories may re-enter only those same categories, with a Commission review due by 28 May 2028.

Legacy lead is therefore a recyclate-quality question rather than a formulation question, and how a recycler handles it is covered on recycled PVC.

Uses outside plastics: paints, road marking and the mineral crocoite#

Outside plastics, lead chromate pigments were and in some markets still are used in paints, including road-marking paint, and the mineral form crocoite is a collector's stone; this site covers additives in polymers, so those uses are noted here and not treated further. Our source library records road-marking paint explicitly as outside the plastics scope for this substance, and the coatings, mineral and art-historical literature on chrome yellow answers questions a compounder does not ask.

The plastics border also sets what this page does not claim. No statement about national lead-paint rules, export volumes or non-polymer consumer products appears here, because none of it is in our source library and none of it changes the status of a polymer article.

Questions still asked about lead chromate#

Three questions come back on every search for this pigment.

What colour is lead chromate?#

Lead chromate is bright yellow as PbCrO4 and as Pigment Yellow 34, and orange to red as Pigment Red 104, because molybdate replacing part of the chromate shifts the absorption edge. Sulfate substitution moves the same lattice the other way, towards a lighter lemon yellow, which is how one pigment chemistry covered the range from lemon through gold and orange to red.

Does lead chromate dissolve in water?#

The water solubility of lead chromate is not established in our source library, so this page publishes no solubility value. Low water solubility would in any case not change the regulatory position, because the harmonised classification attaches to the substance itself and Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 requires lead and chromium to be not detectable in migration whatever the solubility figure turns out to be.

How can a plastic part be tested for lead chromate?#

Lead and chromium in a part are found by elemental analysis, and the limits that matter are written per material, so the sample has to be the homogeneous material under RoHS or the PVC material under Annex XVII entry 63, not the finished assembly. Deformulation methods identify the pigment itself rather than its elements, and the methods that identify a pigment in a finished part are on additive analysis and deformulation of plastics.