ENVIRONMENTALLY ADVANTAGED AIRCRAFT DEICING/ANTI-ICING MATERIALS

Foster-Miller proposes to develop new deicing and anti-icing fluid formulations with reduced environmental impact. Candidate fluid formulations will be developed using a combination of innovative computer modeling techniques and laboratory scale evaluation of key performance characteristics. The effort will focus on identifying cost effective fluid formulations which meet the performance requirements for commercially available aircraft deicers and anti-icers, but which posses reduced biochemical oxygen demand and toxicity. Innovative technologies to produce "self-remediating fluids", which require little or no additional treatment prior to release to the storm sewer will also be examined. The life cycle cost of the new fluid formulations will be assessed to determine their cost effectiveness.The development of an aircraft deicer/anti-icer with low environmental impact would result in millions of dollars of cost savings to the Air Force by reducing the costs of containment, treatment, disposal, or recycling of glycol contaminated runoff from deicing operations.