U-M researchers develop a more accurate lead paint detection test

9/8/2016

A new molecular gel recipe developed at the University of Michigan is at the core of a prototype for a more accurate lead paint test.

The test makes it easy to see whether a paint chip contains more than the regulated 5,000 parts per million of the poisonous metal that was banned from pigments in 1978. Government agencies use that threshold to define paint as “lead-based” and the Environmental Protection Agency requires that home test kits can differentiate above and below it. Yet these home kits have a wide margin of error and they produce many false positives, the researchers say.