Elevance Renewable Sciences, Inc., a high-growth company that creates novel specialty chemicals from natural oils, today announced a new addition to its Elevance Clean™ product line to address the cleaning industry’s growing supply-demand gap for d-limonene. Elevance Clean™ 1000 is a high-performing, bio-based cleaning ingredient that reduces uncertainty in price and supply for d-limonene buyers and boosts performance of d-limonene formulations, especially those used in asphalt/tar removal and degreasing applications.

As the cleaning products industry moves toward more renewable solvents and ingredients for industrial, household and institutional applications, demand for d-limonene, which is extracted from citrus rind, is expected to continue increasing significantly. In contrast, there has been a steady decline in orange supply over the past two years as a result of disease affecting orange groves in the two major orange producing countries, the U.S. and Brazil. This long-term supply issue is posing a challenge for customers who rely on the functional benefits of d-limonene for use in green solvents and cleaning products.

Elevance Clean™ 1000 is easily blended into d-limonene formulas because its HLB requirement is 11-13, very similar to that of d-limonene. Overall formulation costs can be reduced by blending Elevance Clean™ 1000 with d-limonene, which faces increasing prices due to supply constraints and strong demand. Further, Elevance Clean™ 1000 also has specific product attributes that help formulators boost performance of d-limonene formulations.

“Elevance Clean™ 1000 provides formulators and buyers with a way to address unstable citrus feedstock supply and price uncertainty while simultaneously improving the performance of their products,” said Andy Corr, Elevance Senior Vice President, Consumer and Industrial Ingredients. “This addition to our line of renewable and high-performance cleaning ingredient solutions addresses an important and growing market need.”

While Elevance Clean™ 1000 is also produced from natural oils, its feedstock supply is not affected or challenged by seasons, weather or other hard-to-control variables that impact the supply availability of d-limonene. Elevance Clean™ 1000 is supplied at commercial scale by a proven 180,000 MT production capacity biorefinery in Gresik, Indonesia, and its availability will be bolstered by a second facility in Natchez, Miss., now in the engineering phase.

Elevance’s biorefineries are capable of running on multiple globally traded, renewable oil feedstocks, including palm, mustard, soybean, canola and, when they become commercially available, jatropha or algal oils. These feedstocks provide a more diverse and stable source than citrus, thus reducing the risk of supply and price volatility.

Attributes of Elevance Clean™ 1000 that help formulators achieve even better performance include:

• Surpassing the solvency power of d-limonene as measured on the Kauri-butanol (Kb) scale, with Kb values for Elevance Clean™ 1000 at 99, compared to d-limonene at 67
• Demonstrating three times the performance of d-limonene in the industry standard Gardner Cleaning Test (ASTM D4488-95), and is a superior cleaning ingredient when compared to d-limonene for tough-to-remove soils common to the manufacturing; transportation; and Maintenance, Repair and Operations sectors
• Exhibiting excellent performance in non-mechanical immersion testing using a semi-aqueous formulation on lithium grease with a 5 percent micro-emulsion and a 20-minute dwell time, outperforming d-limonene
• Outperforming d-limonene at neutral pH, obviating the need for highly caustic cleaning products, and the need to preserve sensitive metal substrates
• Offering a flash point of 102°C, significantly higher than 50°C for d-limonene
• Is safe for aviation-grade aluminum and other key structural alloys (e.g., galvanized steel, stainless steel, copper, brass, etc.)

Because of Elevance Clean™ 1000’s advantages, cleaning formulations can deliver superior degreasing performance, especially in mechanical and immersion cleaning applications, when Elevance Clean™ 1000 is blended with d-limonene.

In addition, Elevance Clean™ 1000 has several environmental certifications and characteristics, including:

• Listed on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory
• Readily biodegradable
• Improved Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) profile for d-limonene formulations (non-irritant for skin, mild irritant for eye)

“Elevance Clean™ 1000 demonstrates our commitment to providing customers with solutions that weren’t available before to address the challenges they face today and tomorrow,” Corr said. “We anticipate continued applications growth as well as future additions to the Elevance Clean™ line as we continue to help our customers improve their businesses.”