Trial Purpose:
To conduct testing on possible drop in solvents for cleaning of the Dow Corning Vacuum grease.
Date Run:
03/15/2016Experiment Procedure:
Aluminum coupons were arranged into rows of 3. Once the initial weights were taken, the lower third of the coupons were soiled. The coupons were places into the solvent drop in replacement solutions. Observations were taken during the process. The coupons were immersed for 5 minutes and removed to air dry on a drying rack for 15 minutes. Final weights were recorded once the coupons were dried.
Trial Results:
All the drop-in solvents replacement products left a white film after drying is complete.
| Cleaner | Initial Wt. | Clean Wt. | % Removal |
| FluoSolv CX | |||
| 0.2444 | 0.0179 | 92.67 | |
| 0.2015 | 0.0020 | 99.01 | |
| 0.1862 | 0.0020 | 98.92 | |
| FluoSolv NC | |||
| 0.1874 | 0.0340 | 81.85 | |
| 0.2121 | 0.0018 | 99.15 | |
| 0.1412 | 0.0005 | 99.64 | |
| Solstice PF | |||
| 0.3546 | 0.0188 | 94.69 | |
| 0.0676 | 0.0076 | 88.75 | |
| 0.2349 | 0.0055 | 97.65 | |
| Solstice PF-2A | |||
| 0.1445 | 0.0163 | 88.72 | |
| 0.2089 | 0.0053 | 97.46 | |
| 0.2697 | 0.0017 | 99.36 | |
| Vertrel Sion | |||
| 0.6582 | 0.5137 | 21.95 | |
| 0.4454 | 0.1804 | 59.50 | |
| 0.4693 | 0.3650 | 22.22 | |
| FluoSolv CX-500 | |||
| 0.4652 | 0.4338 | 6.75 | |
| 0.5193 | 0.4962 | 4.45 | |
| 0.5376 | 0.5153 | 4.15 | |
| FluoSolv FR-110 | |||
| 0.7155 | 0.6953 | 2.82 | |
| 0.6374 | 0.6224 | 2.35 | |
| 0.7600 | 0.7393 | 3.21 |
Success Rating:
Results successful using TACT (time, agitation, concentration, and temperature, as well as rinsing and drying) and/or other cleaning chemistries examined.Conclusion:
FluoSolv CX, FluoSolv NC, Solstice PF and Solstice PF-2A were effective in removing the grease with an average remove rate above 90%. However, the performance of Vertrel Sion, FluoSolv CX-500 and FluoSolv FR-100 was very disappointing with removal rate ranging between 2.8% to 34%.
