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February 2000

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Subject:
From:
Brian Ellis <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
TechNet E-Mail Forum.
Date:
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 11:46:33 +0100
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Doug

Douglas Pauls wrote:

> Brian,
> Thank you for the larger perspective.
> >
> >  Just to step the argument up a little more: are you sure that there is no
> CFC-113 used
> >  for defluxing in the USA and Europe? I'm not only not sure, on the
> contrary,
> > I'm sure  there are still thousands of tonnes being used per year, from
> three sources:
> >  - legitimately stockpiled quantities
> >  - legitimately recycled solvent
> >  - illegal imports, mainly from Art. 5(1) countries but also from some
> developed ones.
>
> Sure there are.  A few of my clients still use trike, but its because they
> brought in tanker cars of the stuff in 95 and because their military clients
> made it next to impossible to use anything else.  They do recognize that they
> need to change and have investigated many different alternative cleaners,
> most of which are superior cleaners, compared to trike.

By 'trike', I presume you mean 1,1,1-trichloroethane and not trichloroethylene, as the
latter was not regulated by the Montreal Protocol, having an estimated negligible ODP
of 0,0004 (compared with 0,12 for 1,1,1-TCA). Either way, they must be in DEEP trouble
by now as the stuff must have liberal amounts of free hydrochloric acid. Dow estimate
the "use by" date at 18-24 months after manufacture. Of the OD solvents, only unblended
CFC-113 is stable enough to stock over several years.

> >
> >  Furthermore, there are OD solvents which are not in the annexes of the MP,
> > hence may be used legitimately.
> >
> >  No, Doug, those of us at the sharp end of the problem are tearing our hair
>  out (haven't
> >  much left, anyway!) trying to find the solutions to solve all these
> problems.  If the
> >  writer of the first post in this thread is in a developing nation, he may
> contact me
> >  personally if he needs real assistance or even if he is in a developed
> country. I'll
> >  put him in contact with the right guy to help him find a real and
> practical answer for
> >  the conditions he is in, if he cannot do it for himself. (I'm doing this
> kind of thing
> >  for 50% of my time). Absolute confidentiality is assured.
>
> Well, I guess I am on the sharp end of the stick as well, since I have
> counseled clients in India, the Pacific Rim, Europe, and the Middle East.  My
> point is that you can setup a non-ODS cleaning process just as economically
> as you can an ODS-based system.  It need not cost a fortune nor does it
> necessarily require a huge capital investment.

It depends. In general I agree but there are thousands of cases in developing countries
where you cannot just take a developed countries process and export it. Some of the
factors prohibiting this include:- non-availability of water for industrial use
- places where water is so heavily polluted with organic matter that pre-treatment
would be prohibitively expensive
- places where the transport costs of chemicals (e.g. HCl, NaOH for regenerating ion
beds, etc) would be prohibitive
- places where there are no personnel able to comprehend the idea of water purification

- places where the import of industrial equipment is quasi-impossible
- places where the military impose strict regulations of cleaning methods and are not
open to discussion
- places where it is even impossible who the users are
- etc., etc., etc.

Believe it or not, carbon tetrachloride is still widely used in some developing
countries for hundreds of uses, often in open buckets. It is difficult to quantify it,
as the reporting is not accurate, but it is probable that SMEs use it to the tune of
several tens of thousands of tonnes p.a., worldwide. A couple of years ago, I spilt
some food down a suit and took it to a dry cleaners in a large city in a developing
country. On entering the shop, my nasal chromatograph detected a strong odour of CTC.
While waiting to be served, I watched a female operator, perhaps in her early twenties,
open a machine, drag out a load of clothes, still visibly wet, and immediately start to
hand-iron them. What is her expectation of life? If, in countries like this,
perchloroethylene is too expensive to replace CTC, fifty years after we made the
change, what hope is there to force small users of Freon or Chlorothene to change,
short of the taps (including the illicit ones) being closed? I even know of a case
where a large company refused MP Multilateral Fund aid to replace their machines free
of charge and to pay the excess of running costs for 5 years because they said that the
running costs after the 5 years were up would have been too expensive!

> The biggest problem I have is
> with people who think that a little isopropanol and a toothbrush works fine,
> when all this really does is re-distribute the residues.

I agree. About 9 years ago, a very large company I know installed a horrendously
expensive flameproofed conveyorised machine using IPA and they called me in to find out
why their PCBs were not clean. They refused my explanation that IPA was not a good
defluxing solvent on the grounds that the flux was dissolved in the stuff, in the first
place! Brushed, of course, it was still worse, as you very rightly state.

>
>
> Doug.
>
> P.S.  How is Cyprus these days?

Although I am currently in Switzerland, mainly to wind up Protonique SA (Protonique
Ltd, in the UK, will continue), I can hardly wait to get back home to Cyprus. When I
left there, last week, the weather was brilliant, daytime temps peaking to about 18°C,
all the weeds growing like fury. The wildflower season is just starting, when the whole
island will be carpeted in yellows, reds and blues. According to the guidebooks, we get
340 days of sun per year, although I think this is slightly exaggerated, say 320! And
the food and wine....!

Best regards

Brian

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--
Brian Ellis
Protonique SA
PO Box 78
CH-1032 Romanel-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland
Voice: +41 21-648 23 34 Fax: +41 21-648 24 11
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: Technical and consultancy divisions:
       http://www.protonique.com
     Web services division:
       http://www.protonique.com/webserv

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