Metal-Detergent/Cleaner Compatibility

摘要

The Aerospace Guidance and Metrology Center (AGMC), located at the Newark AirForce Base (NAFB) in Newark, Ohio, repairs and services inertial navigation and guidance equipment for the United States Air Force and other Department of Defense (DoD) agencies. Until recently, AGMC has used large quantities of environmentally unfriendly, ozone-depleting chemicals (ODCs) such as CFC-113 or 1,1,1 Trichloroethane (TCA) in their cleaning and degreasing procedures. During the last few years, AGMC has been evaluating alternative, environmentally acceptable chemicals to replace their ODC cleaners. This report describes the results of a study to determine the feasibility of using aqueous cleaners to replace the ODCs without causing unacceptable degradation of metal components. A total of 15 metals and 7 aqueous or semiaqueous cleaners were evaluated. The results show that aqueous cleaners can be used to replace traditional ODCs in both ultrasonic and soak cleaning processes with one major limitation. This limitation is that no single aqueous or semiaqueous cleaner studied in this program was able to replace CFC-113 for cleaning all metals. Aqueous cleaners must be matched to the specific metal that is being cleaned. Compatibility criteria and compatibility tables were established for determining metal/cleaner pairs that can be used without causing unacceptable degradation of the metal surfaces.