As a developer and producer of fluxes for the electronics industry, Emil Otto began developing water- based fluxes for spray fluxing in wave soldering more than 20 years ago. The water-based fluxes are ecologically degradable and their manufacture is by far more environmentally friendly too.
The customers have repeatedly expressed the need for ecological, sustainable products during the course of customer-specific flux development. As a sustainably oriented company, Emil Otto has taken this concern into account and concentrated on the development and creation of ecological fluxes. Emil Otto distributes environmentally friendly fluxes for wave soldering under the ’Green Line’ label. The task is accomplished using spray fluxes. All fluxes can be used on commercially available production systems. The soldering results correspond to those achieved with alcohol-based fluxes. A switch to ecological, water-based fluxes is thus possible without further efforts.
’We have a series of customers who have meanwhile switched to water-based fluxes from our company’, reports Barbara Gessner, Managing Director of Emil Otto GmbH. The benefits of using water-based fluxes for the customer are obvious here. Water has properties as a solvent that positively influence the soldering process. Depending on the process, consumption lies below the values for alcoholic fluxes.
Emil Otto stands by the customer during the conversion. The introduction of water-based fluxes is accomplished together with them, because some things that arise from the physico-chemical properties of aqueous solutions have to be considered during wave soldering. Especially during the soldering process’ preheating it has to be realized that „The replacement of an alcoholic by an aqueous flux must first be checked from a plant-related perspective. More energy is needed during preheating and the spray-flux module must be suitable in a materials sense. Modern systems meet these requirements easily’, explains Wilfried Berke, graduate chemist, IPC specialist, and technical sales consultant at the company.
However water-based fluxes also offer additional benefits for the customer besides ecological sustainability and lower consumption. While the flammability of conventional fluxes based on alcoholic solutions represents a risk during transport and handling, water-based fluxes are subject to labelling requirements neither for transport nor in the production process. Thus transport costs diminish and storage on premises without explosion protection is possible. Use of the fluxes in production is likewise simplified, because neither special handling nor employee training with respect to the use of hazardous substances is necessary.
