Testing Capabilities

Contamination Outgassing Testing

ASTM E 595 / IPC-TM-650 2.6.4

Outgassing materials are detrimental for critical applications that require very clean vacuum environment.  Ougassing occurs when a material is placed in a vacuum environment and subjected to heat, and some of its constituents are volatilized or emitted.  It is necessary to create a very clean vacuum environment for many applications, such as spacecraft equipment, sensitive analytical instruments, and lithography processing.

In order to prevent contamination in vacuum environments, the choice of materials, cleaning methods, and handling procedures must be screened by the ougassing test.  The outgassing facility at ITL is capable to determine the total mass loss (TML) and collected volatile condensable material (CVCM) of materials or components when exposed to a heated vacuum environment.  Mass loss may be due to outgassing of low molecular weight materials, such as trapped process solutions, uncured materials (resin, adhesive, ink, paint, coating, etc.), surface contaminants like oils and release agents used during manufacturing, and in some cases, plasticizers, flame retardants and catalysts.