Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: nasty fluorocarbons
Message-ID: <1989Feb18.234109.3779@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <24497@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 89 23:41:09 GMT

In article <24497@amdcad.AMD.COM> phil@diablo.amd.com () writes:
>We buy these spray cans of TCE for defluxing circuit boards. I
>know that fluorocarbons are bad for the ozone layer and in this
>case, we're not just talking about the propellant, but the contents
>delivered by the propellant are fluorocarbons (I believe).
>
>What alternative do we have? ...

My impression is that at the moment, the answer is "none".  In many
applications of halocarbons (fluorocarbons etc.), they have been chosen
for the job more for convenience than because there aren't any viable
alternatives.  Electronics cleaning is one of the exceptions, though,
where good substitutes are very difficult to find.

There is work in progress on finding variants that will do the job but
won't be as harmful (the potential for ozone-layer damage varies enormously
among even fairly similar compounds), but it hasn't reached the stage of
marketable products yet.
-- 
The Earth is our mother;       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
our nine months are up.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu