Industrial equipment cleaning is not what it used to be, and that is a good thing. Now machinery can be cleaned on line, running and in place. There is no need to mask off glass or metal polished surfaces, dry ice blasting is not abrasive. Electric motors can be cleaned while running. This is possible because dry ice is non-conductive.
With no abrasive blast media to get into bearings, switches, gears etc., there are no long term maintenance costs added. Nor is there water to cause corrosion in electrical panels or switches that can be problematic and expensive.
No secondary waste stream that brings costly disposal fee's. No abrasive blast media to cause long term maintenance expenses. No water which causes corrosion and long term maintenance expenses and no need to shut down to clean (not all cases). We call this equipment cleaning with value added.
Dry ice blasting has changed the procedure of cleaning mold release buildup from roto-molds to a simple process in a fraction of the time it took to clean by conventional means.
Using conventional methods, there are many hours spent sand blasting, scrubbing with rags or abrasive pads and hazardous cleaning solvents to get the mold clean. It takes many hours of polishing on smooth or previously polished surfaces that have been damaged in the cleaning process. Then there is the cleanup of the mess the cleaning process left behind.
Dry ice blasting will not damage metal surfaces, if the surface is polished under the contaminate, it will still be polished after the job is done.
Dry ice pellets disappear on impact, they leave behind only the removed contaminate to be cleaned up. In this case the removed contaminate was not visible.
Pictures are click to enlarge.
Before
After
How do we clean the ink from between all of those spikes on the perforation roller?
- Corn cob blasting will work. It has a secondary waste stream which also will need to be cleaned up.
- High pressure water will work. It has a secondary waste stream which also will need to be cleaned up.
- Sandblasting will work but it removes metal and make the spikes rough which will cause poor perforation of the material. It has a secondary waste stream which also will need to be cleaned up.
- Soda blasting will work but it really makes a mess with its water and soda. It has a secondary waste stream which also will need to be cleaned up.
- Equipment cleaning by dry ice blasting works very well and has no secondary waste stream. Watch the movie clip.
