CRC T-Force® Degreaser MUO Takes TCE Out of Degreasing at a U.S. Petrochemical Complex

CRC Industries Customer Success Story

Helping the plant meet its EHS requirements Without Sacrificing Safety or Cleaning Power

Customer Challenge

Company Overview: A petrochemical complex in the United States depends on its in-house maintenance teams to keep mechanical equipment clean, serviceable, and running. Every maintenance chemical here is judged from several directions at once: Industrial Hygiene looks at exposure and fire risk, Environmental looks at what must be tracked and reported, and Maintenance needs a product that gets the job done.

The Challenge: For cleaning and degreasing, the facility had historically relied on a degreaser based on trichloroethylene (TCE). It met the cleaning requirements, but its chemical composition was raising growing concerns about employee exposure, environmental compliance, and long-term sustainability as safety expectations and regulations tightened. Because TCE is a listed toxic chemical, every unit used had to be counted and reported each year, adding recurring administrative hours for the Environmental Manager.

Replacing it was not simple. The facility had also restricted the other common chlorinated solvents, perchloroethylene (PERC) and methylene chloride, so swapping one chlorinated product for another was off the table. At the same time, Industrial Hygiene was not willing to give up a non-flammable product, and Maintenance was not willing to give up cleaning power. Any replacement had to satisfy all three departments at once.

The goal wasn't just to find a different degreaser. It was to find one that every stakeholder in the plant could sign off on.

CRC Brand Solution

CRC T-Force® Degreaser MUO — Fast-Evaporating, No-Flash-Point Heavy-Duty Degreaser

The Solution: CRC engaged directly with the facility's Industrial Hygiene, Maintenance, and Environmental teams to define exactly what a replacement had to deliver. The resulting requirements were clear: no flash point, quick evaporation, strong cleaning performance, and no residue after application. The Environmental Manager also asked for a product that would not be subject to annual toxic chemical release reporting (SARA Title III, Section 313), and the product had to be free of TCE, PERC, and methylene chloride.

CRC recommended CRC T-Force® Degreaser MUO, a heavy-duty degreaser for manufacturing use that quickly dissolves grease, oil, and sludge from mechanical equipment, evaporates rapidly, and leaves no residue behind. It met every performance, safety, and environmental objective on the facility's list.

What the Facility Required

Product Highlight: CRC T-Force® Degreaser MUO

In this story, the product is not just "a degreaser." It is CRC T-Force® Degreaser MUO, a manufacturing-use-only formula built for mechanical equipment. It removes grease, oil, corrosion, and sludge from air tools, brakes, clutches, chains, wire ropes, motors, dies, molds, bearings, generators, and compressors, then evaporates quickly without leaving residue.

Why it mattered here: it gave the facility the no-flash-point cleaning profile it already depended on and cleaning power the maintenance team found comparable to its TCE-based product, without the restricted chlorinated solvents and without the annual reporting burden.

Customer-Reported Results

Since converting to CRC T-Force® Degreaser MUO, the facility reports benefits across every department involved:

• Industrial Hygiene — Safety Maintained: the team met its objective of keeping a non-flammable degreaser in use, with no compromise in cleaning performance.
• Environmental — Less Reporting Work: retiring a TCE-based product, a listed chemical that had to be counted and reported every year, reduced the Environmental Manager's labor hours.
• Maintenance — Performance Preserved: crews moved to a solution with cleaning performance comparable to the previous TCE-based degreaser.
• Smaller Environmental Footprint: TCE, PERC, and methylene chloride are now out of the facility's degreasing program, supporting its long-term sustainability goals.