Developing inexpensive, non-hazardous and environmentally-benign solvents for industrial activities

有机溶剂是从各种基质中提取碳氢化合物最常用的溶剂。这是尽管它们的生产困难、费用、健康危害和对环境的潜在危害。根据STFC的赠款，已经为ExoMars任务开发了用于提取碳氢化合物的新的水基溶剂系统。这些基于表面活性剂(聚山梨酯80)的解决方案廉价、高效、安全、对环境无害，现已准备好转移到工业中。新的溶剂可以取代工业清洁活动中使用的有机溶剂。表面活性剂可以帮助从水中清除有机化合物，在处理石油开采活动中的受污染废水方面具有潜在的价值，从而大大减少了这些大规模工业过程的高用水需求。现有的设备和程序可以很容易地调整，以适应新的溶剂系统。技术转让具有经济效益高、风险小的特点。

Organic solvents are the most commonly used solvents for extracting hydrocarbons from various matrices. This is despite their difficulty of production, expense, health hazards and potential harm to the environment. New water-based solvent systems for extracting hydrocarbons have been developed for the ExoMars mission under STFC grants. These surfactant (Polysorbate 80) based solutions are cheap, efficient, safe, environmentally benign and are now ready for transfer to industry. The new solvents can replace organic solvents used in industrial cleaning activities. The surfactants can help scavenge organic compounds from water and are potentially valuable for treating contaminated waste waters from petroleum recovery activities thereby dramatically reducing the high water demand for these large scale industrial processes. Existing equipment and procedures can be easily adapted to accommodate the new solvent systems. The technology transfer carries great financial benefit and little risk.