About the authors : Dr Thierry BLUTEAU et Dr Roger A. Klein

Dr Thierry BLUTEAU
Managing Director
3F Americas – Panamá

Dr. Thierry BLUTEAU, French, studied at University of Paris XI, where he achieved a Master in Biochemistry and a PhD in Organic Chemistry.

In 1983, He is nominated as Professor of Biology at French Lycée in Montevideo in Uruguay for two years.

He starts to work in firefighting industry in 1992, where he is Technical Manager in Croda Fire Fighting Department.

6 years later, he funds the company Bio-EX, where he stands as Site Manager. He creates a range of firefighting foams and additives, and develops a wide network of international distributors, with presence in Asia, Australia, Africa and Latino America.`

In 2012, he keeps developing new foams independently in collaboration with LEIA Laboratories, and achieves the creation of two lines of innovative products : the firdt line is Smart Foam, foam products with no solvents and green profile. In 2020, a full line of FREGEN F3 is launched, fluoro-free products to be discovered on our website www.3fff.co.uk

Still active at R&D department in LEIA, he manages also our subsidiary 3F Américas in Panama City.

Dr. Roger A. Klein trained as a medical doctor and as a PhD physical chemist at the University of Cambridge. His academic research interests have covered tropical diseases, fundamental drug research, and more recently theoretical quantum chemistry (IUPAC Task Group on redefining hydrogen bonding) He has nearly 50 years experience advising and working with the Fire Service both in the UK and internationally, in areas that include hazardous materials (Hazmat and CBNRE) and decontamination issues, personal protective equipment (PPE), risk assessment and management, incident command and control, and the impact of fire service operations on the environment, having acted as Principal Scientific Adviser and Radiation Protection Adviser to Cambridgeshire Fire & Rescue Service until 2000. In the late 1990s he was asked by HM Fire Services Inspectorate to produce the first draft of UK guidance on risk assessment and management for the Emergency Services, which later became part of the Fire Service Manual. In 2002 he was involved in the McKinsey report on New York Fire Department (FDNY) operations at the 9/11 WTC incident in New York.

Following on from the 3M Company’s announcement on 16 May 2000 that it was withdrawing from PFOS-based chemistry he became heavily involved in the environmental chemistry of perfluorochemicals, especially as it affected the environment and human health through widespread contamination. In particular, he was concerned with the environmental impact of the dispersive use of firefighting foams, especially fluorosurfactant containing AFFF, and the transition to fluorine-free (F3) Class B foams. He has published extensively in the technical literature and co-organised a series of international seminars on the environmental impact of firefighting foams held at the Reebok Centre, Bolton, UK, in August 2002, December 2004, September 2007, July 2009 and March 2013, as well as the 1st Australian National Forum on Firefighting Foam held in Adelaide in 2011. More recently he has acted in an advisory capacity as a technical advisor to the Environment, Natural Resources and Rural Development Committee (ENRRDC) of the Parliament of Victoria (Australia) as part of the Inquiry into the legacy PFC contamination at the CFA Training College Fiskville, as well as accompanying the Committee on a study trip to Germany in December 2015.

He was also heavily involved in assisting the Queensland Government Department of Environment and Science in their development of a fire fighting foam management policy, including helping to co-organize a major conference held by the Department in Brisbane during February 2017. More recently he has been involved in presenting the case for fluorine-free firefighting (F3) foams as viable alternatives to AFFF as well as environmental and health issues concerning PFOS, PFOA and PFHxS to the UN Stockholm Convention Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POPRC-14) which met at the UN FAO Headquarters in Rome 17-21 September 2018, the ninth Convention of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention (COP-9) in Geneva 29 April-4 May 2019, and POPRC-15 also at FAO Headquarters in Rome 1-4 October 2019; acting as coordinator for the IPEN F3 Panel which produced a series of White Papers for the Committee and COP-9, which are now referenced by regulatory bodies. Formerly of the Universities of Cambridge and Bonn, and recently affiliated as a theoretical chemist to the Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, since 2009 he has been Affiliated Research Faculty at the Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies (RaCERS), John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY New York.

In summary, since 2000 when the 3M Company announced withdrawing all PFOS-based chemistry, Roger Klein has been heavily involved in advising fire services, airports and industry, as well as collaborating with environmental regulators at national and international level, especially in Australasia (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, Singapore) and Northern Europe, in the control and remediation of PFAS environmental contamination. He assisted in the development of the 2016 Queensland foam management policy, now regarded as best-practice worldwide, and gave expert evidence to the Victorian Parliament’s Fiskville Inquiry 2015. He was also on the Advisory Board of a clinical study in Australia aimed at reducing blood PFAS levels in previously exposed firefighters, with the results published in April 2022 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). He was previously a Member of the UK Institution of Fire Engineers, a Chartered Chemist and a Chartered Scientist; he is currently both a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Fellow of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC); he now works as an independent scientific consultant.

Contact details:
Dr. Roger A. Klein, tel: +44 1223 306 846 mob: +44 07555 545 070 email: rogeraklein@yahoo.co.uk