[flycast]

Using THF to wipe contaminates off surfaces. There are of course many choices of purity depending on what your use is. I noticed a lot of these choices are "stabilized" with 0.025% BHT. My question is what does it mean that THF is stabilized in the first place. Secondly, would you expect that the BHT would end up being deposited on the surface of ABS plastic and could be a contaminate later?

[discodermolide]

BHT is butylated hydroxy toluene. It is used in solvents such as THF to prevent peroxide formation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butylated_hydroxytoluene

After the THF evaporates this will be left on the surface. So how much do you use for wiping the plastic surface and how many times is it done?

[phth]

Here's a reference with that reports the ammount used in hydrocarbon per liter, and PPh₃ is used.  But be forwarned PPh₃ is very toxic and will interfere with every metal process in the body. https://www.google.com/patents/US6475252

[clarkstill]

That's a little misleading - triphenylphosphine isn't particularly toxic. It's oral LD50 in rats is 700 mg / kg, so an acutely toxic dose in humans is about 50 grams!

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/MSDS/MSDS/DisplayMSDSPage.do?country=GB&language=en&productNumber=T84409&brand=SIAL&PageToGoToURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sigmaaldrich.com%2Fcatalog%2Fproduct%2Fsial%2Ft84409%3Flang%3Den

[flycast]

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like an antioxidant. I am using it to wipe a surface with a clean wipe to try to remove surfactants, oils, etc that may be inhibiting adhesion of coatings. I will keep in mind that the BHT could have an effect by depositing on the surface.

[Enthalpy]

In a microelectronics lab (during the paleomonolithic era) we used ethanol to clean everything. As grade Selectipur or Vlsi $$$$$ it left nothing deposited on the surfaces. It's essentially 99% ethanol, 1% water, the rest being well under 0.1% and guaranteed volatile.

I believe to remember that ethanol doesn't dissolve Abs, so it would be a candidate.