Elevance Renewable Sciences introduced Elevance Clean 1200, a degreasing and VOC-exempt solvent that outperforms traditional and bio-based solvents for industrial degreasing applications targeted toward heavy manufacturing, transportation maintenance and repair operations (MRO), and industrial food processing.

Elevance’s biorefinery in Gresik, Indonesia, a 180,000 MT joint venture with Wilmar International Limited.
Elevance Clean 1200, now commercially available, is the latest addition to the growing portfolio of renewable, high-performance products from Elevance’s novel technology and biorefinery, and is the second cleaning solution commercialized this year. The first is STEPOSOL MET-10U, a novel surfactant based on Elevance’s Inherent building blocks, introduced by Stepan Company, one of the leading global surfactant manufacturers, for a range of cleaning applications including adhesive removal, paint and coating removal systems, kitchen degreasers and all-purpose cleaners for both consumer and industrial uses.
“We are committed to offering a suite of better-performing, more cost-effective cleaning solutions for the marketplace,” said Andy Corr, Elevance Senior Vice President, Consumer and Industrial Ingredients. “Elevance Clean 1200 is fulfilling an unmet market need for a high-performing, environmentally friendly solvent with reliable supply and price stability. Elevance Clean 1200 and STEPOSOL MET-10U represent significant advancements in cleaning performance that couldn’t be achieved before.”
Elevance Clean 1200 is produced from natural oils to create a novel solvent architecture that delivers superior performance. This innovative, bio-based solution achieves sustainability goals while improving cleaning performance in applications such as:
- Tough-to-remove soils common to the heavy manufacturing and transportation MRO sectors — industrial grade complex greases (e.g., lithium, molybdenum disulfide), paraffin waxes, automotive lubricants, metalworking fluids and corrosion-preventive oils.
- Tough-to-clean soils affecting industrial food processing operations — hardened and fluid animal and plant lipids, and cooking greases and oils.
Elevance Clean 1200 can be used as a pure solvent, blended with other solvents or emulsified with the addition of surfactants to provide semi-aqueous systems for a variety of industrial degreasing applications where superior performance and an improved environmental profile is desired. In addition, Elevance Clean 1200 can be used in mechanical and touchless (immersion) cleaning applications, and its specific product attributes include:
- Outperforming standard degreasing formulations in the market at neutral pH (6-9), eliminating the need for highly caustic cleaning products, demanding and time-consuming personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements, and the need to preserve sensitive metal substrates.
- Surpassing the solvency power of d-limonene, other terpenes and esters including soy methyl esters and dibasic esters, as measured on the Kauri-butanol (Kb) scale.
- Degreasing up to two-to-three times more effectively and more quickly in metal cleaning when compared to Aromatic 150, d-limonene, methyl soyate and other standard solvents.
- Demonstrating excellent performance in non-mechanical immersion testing, outperforming Aromatic 150, d-limonene, methyl soyate and other standard solvents.
Elevance Clean 1200 also meets restrictive environmental requirements, a key benefit as VOC requirements continue to become more stringent globally and a growing number of aromatic solvents appear on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Elevance Clean 1200 meets the following requirements:
- VOC exempt (40 CFR 59.203 – Standards for consumer products)
- TSCA listed and REACh registered
- California AQMD LVP-VOC
- Readily biodegradable (by OECD method)
- Non-flammable
Elevance Clean 1200 is produced from large, local commodity crop sources with proven price stability compared to key alternatives like d-limonene, and is available through Elevance’s world-scale biorefinery in Gresik, Indonesia, a 180,000 MT joint venture with Wilmar International Limited. Availability will be bolstered by a second biorefinery in Natchez, Miss., USA, where engineering is currently underway. Elevance is the only specialty chemicals company that will have two world-scale biorefineries in operation by 2016.
Elevance Renewable Sciences
www.elevance.com
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