An Environmentally Acceptable Paint Stripping System

Currently application paint removers for airframe and immersion paint removers for components use chlorinated hydrocarbons as their main carrier solvent. Typically these would be dichloromethane for application paint removers and either dichloromethane or o-dichlorobenzene for immersion paint removers, depending upon the temperature of operation. In addition these products may be activated by either phenol/cresol or organic acids or a combination of both.

Current legislation is such that these raw materials, with perhaps the exception of the organic acids, present an environmental/health and safety problem for the user. The acidic element of the formulation can cause operational problems as they cause hydrogen embrittlement of high tensile steels typically found in their undercarriages.

The paper will discuss the problems associated with these raw materials and will look at the development of environmentally-friendly paint softeners.