Common uses of solvents
Solvent products are utilised in almost all manufacturing processes in a wide variety of applications everyday in the modern living such as pharmaceuticals, personal care or electronics and many more.
Printing
Solvents have been widely used in printing industry, especially in offset lithography printing. It has some advantages in reducing surface tension of fountain solutions and provide better wetting. It also acts as a coolant to remove the heat from roller and the ink rapidly.
Ink Manufacturers
Common solvents used in inks are a variety of organic compounds such as hydrocarbons (eg. aliphatic solvents like naphtha; paraffin hydrocarbon like pentane, hexane, heptane, isooctane and mineral oil; and aromatic solvents like benzene, toluene and xylene.
Paint & Coating Manufacturers
Solvents dissolve or disperse different components used in paint. Formulation (such as pigment & resin), making paint the desire consistency for application. Once paint is applied, the solvent evaporates, allowing resin and pigment produce a film of paint (coat) and dry rapidly. The use of solvent paint provides a variety of effective choices among durable and decorative coatings and glossy paints for indoor and outdoor use.
Thinner Blending Industry
Solvents (for cleaning up or softening) and thinners for diluting or extending are useful not only in painting but in other areas such as wooden furniture industry, automobile industry, ink industry and rubber industry.
Electronic & Semiconductor
Solvent base cleaners remain popular in industrial applications due to their cleaning power. They remove thick, baked on oils, dirt, containments, solder flux and grease. Some examples of strong cleaning solvents are acetone, MEK, Toluene, MC and TCE.
Solvents are used to clean the surface of waffle and circuits. Common solvent groups used in producing micro chips are alcohols, esters and ketone. Making integrated circuit is a multi-layer, multi-steps process. Solvent play a critical role in transferring the circuit pattern onto the chip.