Electronics

 Overview

In the electronics industry, polypropylene glycols and polyglycol copolymers are used in capacitor fluids, solder assist fluids, and water-soluble flux formulations for cleaning metal surfaces on printed circuit boards.

A typical water-soluble flux consists of three components: a solvent, an activator, and a vehicle. Solvents are typically alcohols or glycols. Activators are typically amine hydrohalides or acids. Vehicles are typically polypropylene glycols and polyglycol copolymers and their octyl or nonyl derivatives.

When used as vehicles in water-soluble flux formulations, polypropylene glycols and polyglycol copolymers provide high temperature retention for otherwise volatile and thermally unstable activators. This gives the activators more time to clean the metal surfaces on a circuit board.

Products
The following products can be used in electronics applications. Although each product has unique properties based on molecular weight and the monomer used, they all share some common properties.

Dow also offers CARBOWAX™ polyethylene glycol for use as a water-soluble fluid in the wire saw process to slice ingots into wafers, UCON™ Solder Assist Fluids for use in PCB fabrication and assembly, and DOWFAX* nonionic surfactants for use in defoamer formulations to control foam in the developing stage of PCB manufacturing.

Also see DOWFAX noionic surfactants in Latin America

Polypropylene Glycols	Polyglycol Copolymers
P400E	15-200

®™^* Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company ("Dow") or an affiliated company of Dow