Industry Insight
NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 (full name: Drinking Water System Components – Health Effects) is a public consensus standard jointly developed by NSF International, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and the Standards Council of Canada (SCC). It establishes the minimum health-effect requirements for materials, components, and products that come into contact with drinking water or drinking water treatment chemicals, and is currently the core mandatory compliance standard for drinking water products entering the North American market.
The core objective of this standard is to evaluate the potential health impact of chemical contaminants migrating from products into drinking water, rather than assessing product performance, taste, odor, or microbial indicators. It covers a wide range of products, including pipes and fittings, mechanical devices (such as valves, pumps, filters), joining and sealing materials (such as gaskets, adhesives, lubricants), barrier materials (such as coatings, tank linings), process media (such as filter media, ion exchange resins), and mechanical plumbing devices (such as faucets, drinking fountains).
The testing process of the standard adopts an accelerated aging immersion method to simulate long-term contact between products and water in actual use. Samples are immersed in water with specific pH values (5, 6.5, 8, or 10) for three 168-hour static test cycles, and the concentration of contaminants in the leachate is measured in the third cycle. Testing items cover heavy metals (such as lead, cadmium, arsenic, chromium, mercury), organic pollutants (such as VOCs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, phenols, nitrosamines), and emerging contaminants (such as seven PFAS compounds including PFOA and PFOS).
In recent years, the standard has continuously tightened lead leaching limits. Since January 1, 2024, the maximum allowable lead leaching Q value for terminal drinking water equipment such as faucets has been reduced from 5 µg to 1 µg, and for small components such as connecting hoses and angle valves, it has been reduced from 3 µg to 0.5 µg.
NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 certification is not a one-time assessment. After certification, manufacturers must undergo annual unannounced factory audits and periodic product re-testing to maintain the validity of the certificate. Currently, 49 states in the United States and 13 provinces/territories in Canada require drinking water system components to comply with this standard in regulations or policies.
For foreign trade enterprises, choosing raw materials that have already passed NSF 61 certification can significantly reduce the risk of finished product testing failure and shorten the certification cycle, which is an effective strategy to quickly meet North American market access requirements.