Park YB  Bae JH  Lee MJ  Lee JG  Lee HY  Bae SJ  Lee DK

Vol. 17,  No. 4, pp. 306-313, Dec.  2011

Non-aqueous cleaning agents Hydrocarbon-type Flux cleaning Flash point Ozone depletion substances (ODS)

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Flux or solder is used in soldering process for manufacturing electronic parts such as printed circuit boards(PCB). After soldering process, residual flux and solder paste on the parts should be removed since their residuals could cause performance degradation or failure of parts due to their corrosion and electric leakage. Ozone depletion substances such as 1,1,1- trichloroethane (TCE) and HCFC-141b have widely been using for removal of residual flux and solder paste after soldering process In manufacturing of electronic parts until now. In this study, non-aqueous cleaning agents without flash point were developed and applied to industrial field for replacement of cleaning agents with ozone depletion. In order to develop non-aqueous cleaning agents without flash point, they were formulated with hydrocarbon-type solvents as their major components and several additives such as glycol ethers, esters, fluoride- type solvents. And their physical properties and cleaning abilities were evaluated, and they were applied to industrial fields for cleaning of flux and solder on the PCB. And vacuum distillation apparatus were operated to determine their operating conditions and recycling yields for recycling of used cleaning agents formulated in this study. As a result of physical properties measurement of our formulated cleaning agents, they were expected to have good wetting and penetrating power since their surface tensions were relatively low as 18.0~20.4 dyne/cm2 and their wetting indices are relatively large. And some cleaning agents holding fluoride-type solvents as their components did not have any flash point and they seemed to be safe in their handling and storage. The cleaning experimental results showed that some cleaning agents were better in their cleaning of flux and solder paste than 1,1,1-TCE and HCFC-141b. And industrial application results of the formulated cleaning agents for cleaning PCB indicated that they can be applicable to industry due to their good cleaning capability in comparison with HCFC-141b. The recycling experiments of the used formulated cleaning agents through a vacuum distillation apparatus also showed that their 91.9~97.5% could be recycled with its proper operating conditions.