Book Description

Federal, state and local regulations limiting the use, storage and disposal of hydrocarbon-based cleaning solvents have led to the uncontrolled replacement of solvents with environmentally friendly products. The Army and other defense agencies rely on these solvents to maintain unique, mission critical systems and materiel and the replacement of hydrocarbon solvents has resulted in use, approval and compatibility issues. The U.S. Army Environmental Center (USAEC) and Aberdeen Test Center (ATC) have developed an Alternative Cleaner Compatibility and Performance Evaluation Program to survey user needs, validate alternative cleaner performance, consolidate lessons learned and provide a web based dissemination, review and evaluation tool. The test criteria were developed based on input from the technical community, the test community and the user community. A cooperative program between cleaner manufacturers and USAEC/ATC is currently in progress to evaluate currently available cleaner technology. The objective of this paper is to discuss the current status of the alternative cleaner testing and efforts to develop a universal test protocol that will provide the DOD community with the data necessary to make wise decisions concerning the replacement of hydrocarbon based cleaners. The culmination of the process will provide a user-friendly mechanism to facilitate implementation of environmentally friendly replacement products and technologies.