Aerosol formulations

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Build a reputation for excellence among your customers by creating aerosol products that meet their demands for safety, effectiveness and environmental responsibility. It’s all possible when you start your formulations with 3M™ Novec™ Engineered Fluids, developed to help you create the aerosols of the future that will satisfy customer desires for non-flammablility and inerting flammable solvents, low toxicity, low global warming potential (GWP), and zero ozone depletion potential (ODP). These solvents are effective replacements for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) and perfluoropolyethers (PFPEs) in your industrial use aerosols.

Novec Engineered Fluids also offer a range of characteristics and non-chlorinated options for even your most demanding applications, including formulating industrial aerosols for cleaning, coatings and lubricants. These solvents help you add value to your products while helping protect the health of workers and the planet — benefiting both your business and those who use your product. 

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Bringing more to the mix.

More options and more answers for aerosol formulations

The precision and performance needed when formulating aerosols requires advanced and thoughtful engineering. Backed by decades of experience and powered by the vision of 3M scientists around the world, 3M Novec fluids didn’t just happen by chance; they were intentionally created with your needs and products in mind.

  • Close-up of spray coming out of an aerosol straw onto a metal part.
    Cleaning, coating and lubricant aerosols

    Whether you are creating an aerosol for cleaning, applying a coating or for lubrication, we developed 3M Novec Engineered Fluids with the low surface tension, viscosity and range of vapor pressures your formulation requires.

  • Supervisor and worker using digital tablet in factory.
    Industrial use and precision parts applications

    The demanding environment found in factories, heavy industrial or precision parts applications requires aerosols that optimize performance with worker safety and material compatibility requirements. Create unique aerosols that your customers can trust to help improve their workers’ safety and elevate overall performance.

  • Landscape of two green trees and green grass with a blue sky.
    Replacing a regulated chemical

    The need to safeguard our planet has led to many regulations and limitations on how aerosols can be formulated. When you are formulating the aerosols of the future, starting with 3M Novec Engineered Fluids gives the confidence of knowing that your aerosol is made with a low global warming potential (GWP) and low VOC solvent that is not targeted for regulatory phasedown or phase-out.


Smart, safe and sustainable answers to your challenges

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Delivering performance, helping keep workers and users safer, protecting the planet: These are the motivations that drive us to advance our science and, with your collaboration, help improve lives through the products you create.

  • Extreme close-up of someone spraying from an aerosol can on a black background.
    Smart: High-performance formulating freedom

    We developed 3M Novec Engineered Fluids specifically to give you freedom in creating your aerosol formulations so you can bring your vision to reality without compromise.
     

    • Solubility: Helps improve the final products' performance and shelf life
    • Stability: Minimizes changes in properties due to storage or transport
    • Compatibility: No damage to a wide variety of components and substrate materials, including metals, plastics and elastomers
    • Low surface tension, low viscosity and high density: High wetting indexes, more uniform application and better coverage
    • Range of available vapor pressures: Allows you to optimize for the best balance of evaporation rate and initial viscosity to affect dry times, dripping, film uniformity and coverage
  • 3M Novec Engineered Fluid in a glass beaker being tilted to allow vapor to put out flame on a lit candle.
    Safety: Non-flammable, low toxicity

    Flammability is of the utmost concern in the aerosol formulation industry. Through careful, precise engineering, we help you address this concern while providing low toxicity.
     

    • Non-flammable: Help improve safety in your factories
    • A way to inert formulations: Choose from our neat Novec fluids (non-blends) to combine with a flammable solvent such as trans-dichloroethylene (t-DCE) as a way to help make your aerosol non-flammable
    • Exposure guidelines: Wide margins of safety
  • Close-up of the base of cement columns outside a government building.
    Sustainability: For regulatory compliance

    Regulations designed to preserve the planet are leading more aerosol manufacturers to seek out more sustainable alternatives to hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), and other common high GWP industrial solvents. Novec Engineered Fluids feature a favorable environmental profile, including:
     

    • Low global warming potential (GWP)
    • Zero ozone depletion potential (ODP)
    • Not scheduled for regulatory restriction, phasedown or phase-out
    • Neat Novec fluids are non-chlorinated and exempt from the U.S. EPA definitions for volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

Engineered fluids for a range of aerosol formulation needs


Featured resources and tools for aerosol formulations

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Contact us for answers about aerosol formulations, samples and regulatory information

3M Novec is more than a line of products — we’re people who share your passion for solving problems and improving lives. Contact us to answer any questions you may have about how we can help, including:
 

  • Aerosol product formulation questions
  • 3M Novec Engineered Fluid data and specifications
  • Samples to put our product to the test in your laboratory
  • Information on how our products can aid in regulatory compliance