Does Bromothane™ Have
Any Materials Compatibility Problems?

Well, yes and no.

The Bromothane™ family of solvents has good materials compatibility across almost all of the common materials of construction, including fiber glass, resins, plastics, ceramics, glass and metals. Bromothane™ products were found compatible with zinc, stainless steel, carbon steel, aluminum and copper.

But all of the Bromothane™ products (as well as all nPB-based cleaners from other vendors) will have compatibility concerns with soft plastics such as polycarbonates. (The transparent windows on LCDs, calculators, pagers, palmtop computers and cell phones usually are made from polycarbonates.) Gaskets and elastomers also will demonstrate some swelling and will, in most cases, revert to within a few percent of original size/weight after air drying. Swell, shrinkage, and extractables are strongly affected by the compounding agents, plasticizers, and curing processes used in the manufacture of the plastics and elastomers. Therefore, thorough testing prior to deployment is particularly important.

Remember that the effect which Bromothane™ can impart on plastics, gaskets and elastomers may vary depending the material composition such as the compounding agents, plasticizers, processing, etc. Specific materials should be tested for compatibility with the solvent.

• Materials Compatibility with Bromothane™ nPB Solvents •

Here's a good rule-of-thumb. These cleaners behave very similarly to HCFC-141b or the old chlorinated solvents. If you have concerns about the compatibility of the Bromothane™ cleaner with your components, check and see if they could be cleaned with those older products. If they could, then you probably will have no problems with the Bromothane™ products.

If you have specific questions about plastics or elastomers, check the individual product spec sheets, or contact MicroCare. Regardless of what you read, however, please take our advice on this matter: test the solvent before deploying it. All the assumptions in the world can't replace a few good, simple tests, and those tests will eliminate a great deal of uncertainty about your products, components and problems.

Contact with highly basic process materials, pH 10 or above, is not recommended.

In short, Bromothane™ specialty fluids are the ideal precision cleaner whenever concerns about materials compatibility are not a major factor. These are great replacements for ozone-depleting solvents such as CFC-113, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, HCFC-141b and HCFC-225, as well as high-global-warming solvents such as perfluorocarbons (PFCs).

Updated: Jan 25, 2004
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