Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Alternative Solvents through Green Chemistry Project

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2025

<p>The purpose of this project is to develop state-of-the-art, green precision cleaning technologies for NASA&rsquo;s 21<sup>st</sup> Century Launch Complex thus eliminating long-term environmental costs to the Program.&nbsp; Precision cleaning is of critical importance in the aerospace industry.&nbsp; Failure to clean to specified levels may result in problems ranging from impaired performance to catastrophic failure.&nbsp;</p><p>Of particular concern is the cleaning of systems containing strong oxidizers such as liquid oxygen (LOX) or hypergolic fuels.&nbsp; Currently, precision cleaning at Kennedy Space Center is performed using dual-solvent process in which the first solvent, Vertrel MCA, is used to clean the component and a second solvent, HFE-7100, is used as a final rinse and analytical test fluid.&nbsp; Highly fluorinated compounds such as those used in Vertrel MCA are extremely persistent in the environment and are potent greenhouse gases. Continued use of this or similar solvents will lead to high remediation costs that must be carried by the Program for years to come.</p><p>Historically, precision cleaning has used chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), such as Freon, because it was non-toxic and performed extremely wll.&nbsp; When Freon, and other CFCs, were banned due to their harmful environmental effects, new solvents were identified that were similar compounds but were not yet regulated.&nbsp; Eventually, these solvents also become regulated and unavailable for use.&nbsp; This project specifically did not consider halogenated solvents in order to find solvents or technologies that would not face future environmental regulations.</p>

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

References

http://techport.nasa.gov/home
http://techport.nasa.gov/doc/home/TechPort_Advanced_Search.pdf
http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=6561
http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=3456
http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=3447
http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=6584
http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=6560
http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=3448

Dates

Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2025
Publisher Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate
Maintainer
Identifier TECHPORT_11697
Data First Published 2011-10-01
Data Last Modified 2025-03-31
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 1715813b-d21a-4819-ad1c-434dbf873284
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL http://techport.nasa.gov/view/11697
Program Code 026:000
Related Documents http://techport.nasa.gov/home, http://techport.nasa.gov/doc/home/TechPort_Advanced_Search.pdf, http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=6561, http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=3456, http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=3447, http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=6584, http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=6560, http://techport.nasa.gov/fetchFile?objectId=3448
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash b997949ed7f128050228b31b51e2621e81a105b7cc785882506e87b2bae47131
Source Schema Version 1.1
Temporal 2011-10-01T00:00:00Z/2014-09-01T00:00:00Z

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.