For cleaner cleaning
November 1st 2006 BAE Systems' Electronics has shifted from Trichloroethylene (Trike) to 3M Novec HFE-72DE fluid from Acota for the solvent cleaning of delicate sonar transducers during manufacture. This has reduced the organisation's consumption of harmful solvents and improved quality by allowing sensitive parts to be quickly and effectively cleaned at lower temperatures. At BAE systems, highly advanced, sensitive electronics equipment is manufactured at relatively low volumes, but can be extremely valuable and time consuming to produce, with testing only possible at a late stage of assembly. As a result manufacturing quality requirements are critical and contamination must be avoided at all costs. Mark Seccombe of BAE Systems comments: "Although the fluid itself may be more expensive than our previous solution, the new processes means that we use less of it, get better results and avoid buying expensive and disruptive additional equipment." More articles from 3M UK PLC: | 
