Diarylide Yellow AAOT
PY14
Alternate Names
Azo Yellow
Disazo Type 11 Toluidide
OT Yellow
Pigment Description
Lightfastness is reported by third party sources to be poor-- quite fugitive. This pigment may actually descend to a blue wool scale of 1 on a scale of 8, with 8 being good and 1 being basically falling off the bottom of the scale.
In addition to poor lightfastness this may metabolize to a known carcinogen, see Monona Rossol's work to learn more. She notes that it may also be contaminated with PCBs.
We were very surprised to find this pigment in artists oils. One manufacturer, who is quite well thought of, mentioned its stability and reports the lightfastness of their version as ASTM II, so perhaps there is some variety.
We wondered if there is some discrepancy somewhere, as artiscreation reports quite sorrowful lightfastness testing for PY14 with the low end of moderate for masstone and dramatic fading in tints. We wondered if there was a typo somewhere, and we checked the six digit code reported by the manufacturer (21095). It does indeed seem to be PY14 and both sources mention that the color is used mainly in printing. Perhaps doing one's own lightfastness tests would be useful.
PY14 comes in several different varieties which differ in opacity.
Resources
PY14 pigment data from David G. Myers, The Color of Art Pigment Database, Artiscreation.com,
Rossol, Monona. The Artist's Complete Health and Safety Guide. New York, NY : Allworth Press, 2001. The book is rather dated, updated information is available from her website.
Stats
Lightfastness
Very Poor
May be as low as BWS 2 or even 1!
Transparency
Semi-Transparent, Semi-Opaque
Toxicity
Previously thought to be Lower Concern, however may be hazardous. May be contaminated with toxic substances
May metabolize to a carcinogen. Along with possible PCB contamination, there are some question marks surrounding this pigment. While acute toxicity is thought to be low, Monona Rossol writes, “Long term hazards unstudied. Heat and metabolism releases 3,3'-dichlorobenzidine, a known carcinogen. Contamination with PCBs likely.” Rossol’s research is a wealth of information.
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