Santovac Fluids - SPI Supplies

SPI Supplies is one of only a very few worldwide distributors for Santovac Fluids, Inc., the world renown firm that specializes in the development, manufacture, and marketing of "extreme environment" lubricants, fluids and greases.

Although there are others, the main family of products manufactured by Santovac Fluids falls within the chemistry class called polyphenyl ethers. This class of materials are often times referred to as "polyphenyl ether synthetic diffusion pumps fluids" and sometimes only as "PPE fluids".

What has been interesting to us is that there are actually several different features of the polyphenyl ether chemistry that makes this entire family of lubricants and fluids truly unique and in a class all of its own. First and foremost, the entire family of products is based on hydrocarbon technology, so completely absent are silicones and halogens, constituents that could wreak havoc on the systems of many would-be users. So the #1 attraction is the all-hydrocarbon nature. Furthermore, the use range for the products, for example Santovac 5 fluid and the Santovac 5 GB grease is far beyond what is possible with other pure hydrocarbon lubricants and fluids. For example, Santovac 5 in a hot diffusion pump, will last almost indefinitely in comparison with any other hydrocarbon fluid alternative. The Santovac 5P ULTRA is really essentially the same as the standard Santovac 5 product but it has been through additional distillation steps to reduce to still lower levels the three and four ring PPE's (to less than 0.02% for the three member ring compounds and less than 0.1% for the four member ring compounds.
For many years, users were quite happy with the outstanding results they obtained routinely when using the original Santovac 5. However, for some situations, user realize a noticeably higher level performance when switching to Santovac 5P ULTRA. This seems to be universally true for those with ultra clean applications, such as nearly anyone doing mass spectrometry and also using a diffusion pump. For the electron microscope application, which is also a well known "ultra clean application", those looking at organic materials might see less of a long term improvement than those doing materials science samples since the organic nature of the samples can contribute to oil contamination. But for ultra-clean (both SEM and TEM) columns, Santovac 5P ULTRA should produce a cleaner vacuum and thereby also, less specimen contamination.
Thin films of either Santovac 5, Santovac 5P Ultra, or Santovac 5GB High Vacuum Grease can be removed quite readily with common laboratory hydrocarbon solvents. Anyone who has had the experience knows that the removal of a silicone fluid film is an almost impossible situation, in comparison. For UHV applications, it can also be baked off of most metal parts.
Elastomeric materials (e.g. PTFE, Viton^® fluoroelastomer, silicone, butyl rubber) used as "o" rings and seals in high vacuum systems, are generally compatible with the entire family of Santovac products. However if you should have any doubts yourself about such compatibility, you should first make sure you know the composition of the elastomers in your system and then determine the compatibility of that particular elastomer.

In addition, the high resistance of this entire family of products to ionizing radiation results in there being many applications in nuclear plants, which is also the reason why these products for some countries and institutions require export licenses. Within an electron microscope environment, there is less tendency for the diffusion pump fluid to contribute to column contamination.

The technology behind the polyphenyl fluids has produced a family of products, all of which are either presently, or will be available shortly, from SPI Supplies and featuring discounted pricing: