Knowde Enhanced TDS
Identification & Functionality
- Product Type
- Technologies
- Contains
- Sodium
- Potassium
Applications & Uses
- Markets
- Applications
- Compatible Substrates & Surfaces
- Application
Process Cleaning.
- Substrates
- Steel
- Stainless
- Application Method
Immersion.
- Industrial Surface Cleaning Products Application highlights
Parts cleaning
- Parts cleaning is essential to many industrial processes, as a prelude to surface finishing or to protect sensitive components. Electroplating is particularly sensitive to part cleanliness, since molecular layers of oil can prevent adhesion of the coating. ASTM B322 is a standard guide for cleaning metals prior to electroplating. Cleaning processes include solvent cleaning, hot alkaline detergent cleaning, electrocleaning, and acid etch. The most common industrial test for cleanliness is the waterbreak test, in which the surface is thoroughly rinsed and held vertical.
- A quantitative measurement for this parameter is contact angle. Hydrophobic contaminants such as oils cause the water to bead and break up, allowing the water to drain rapidly. Perfectly clean metal surfaces are hydrophilic and will retain an unbroken sheet of water that does not bead up or drain off. ASTM F22 describes a version of this test. This test does not detect hydrophilic contaminants, but the electroplating process can displace these easily since the solutions are water-based. Surfactants such as soap reduce the sensitivity of the test, so these must be thoroughly rinsed off.
Parts and Materials to be Cleaned
First, consider the parts to be cleaned. They may consist of non- or hardly-processed sections, sheets and wires, but also machined parts or assembled components needing cleaning. Therefore, they may be composed of different metals or different combinations of metals. Plastics and composite materials can frequently be found and indeed are on the increase because e.g. the automobile industry as well as others are using more and more lighter materials.
Mass and size can be very important for the selection of cleaning methods. For example big shafts for ships are usually cleaned manually, whereas tiny shafts for electrical appliances are often cleaned in bulk in highly automated plants.
Similarly important is the geometry of the parts. Long, thin, branching, threaded holes, which could contain jammed chips, feature among the greatest challenges in this technical field. High pressure and the power wash process are one way to remove these chips, as well as robots, which are programmed to exactly flush the drilled holes under high pressure.
Contaminations
The parts are usually covered by unwanted substances, the contaminations or soiling. The definition used is quite varied. In certain cases these coverings may be desired: e.g. one may not wish to remove a paint layer but only the material on top. In another case, where crack proofing is necessary one has to remove the paint layer and it is regarded as an unwanted substance.
The classification of soiling follows the layer structure starting from the base material:
Structure of a metallic surface- Deformed boundary layer, > 1 µm
- Reaction layer, 1–10 nm
- Sorption layer, 1–10 nm
- Contamination layer, > 1 µm
See illustration 2: Structure of a metallic surface
The nearer the layers are to the substrate surface, the more energy is needed to remove them. Correspondingly the cleaning itself can be structured according to the type of energy input:- Mechanical – abrasive: blasting, grinding
- Mechanical – non-abrasive: stirring, mixing, ultrasound, spraying
- Thermal – reactive: heat treatment much above 100 °C in reactive gasses
- Thermal – non-reactive: temperature below 100 °C, increased bath temperature, Vapor degreasing
- Chemical – abrasive/reactive: pickling in liquids, plasma-assisted, sputter-cleaning, electropolishing
- Chemical – non-reactive: organic solvents, aqueous solutions, supercritical CO2
The contamination layer may then be further classified according to:
- Origin
- Composition: e.g. cooling lubricants may be composed very differently, thereby single components may account for big problems especially for job shop cleaners, who have no control over prior processes and thus don’t know the contaminants. For example, silicates may obstruct nitriding.
- State of aggregation
- Chemical and physical properties
The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) presents six groups of contaminations in their manual “Choosing a cleaning process” and relates them to the most common cleaning methods, thereby the suitability of cleaning methods for the removal of a given contaminate is discussed in detail.[2] In addition they list exemplary cleaning processes for different typical applications. Since one has to consider very many different aspects when choosing a process, this can only serve as a first orientation. The groups of contaminants are stated as follows:
- Pigmented drawing compounds
- Unpigmented oil and grease
- Chips and cutting fluids
- Polishing and buffing compounds
- Rust and scale
- Others
Charging
In order to select suitable equipment and media it should be known also which amount and which throughput has to be handled. Small amounts can hardly be cleaned economically in larger plants. Also the type of charging has to be ascertained. Sensitive parts sometimes need to be fixed in boxes. Very economically when dealing with large amounts is bulk charging, but it is quite difficult to achieve a sufficient level of cleanliness with flat pieces clinging together. Also drying can be difficult in these cases.
Place of Cleaning
- Another consideration is the place of cleaning. E.g. is the cleaning to be done on site, which can be the case with repair and maintenance work.
- Usually the cleaning takes place in a workshop. Several common methods are solvent degreasing, vapor degreasing and using an aqueous parts washer. Companies often want the charging, loading and unloading to be integrated into the production line, which is much more demanding as regards size and throughput ability of the cleaning system.
- Such cleaning systems often exactly match the requirements regarding parts, contaminants and charging methods (special production). Nonetheless central cleaning equipment, often built as multi task systems, are commonly used. These systems can suit different cleaning requirements. Typical examples are the wash stands or the small cleaning machines which are found in many industrial plants.
Cleaning Equipment and Procedure
First, one can differentiate among the following techniques (ordered from most to least technologically advanced):
Manual
Mechanical
Automatic
Robot supported
The process may be performed in one step, which is especially true for the manual cleaning, but typically it requires several steps. Therefore, it is not uncommon to find 10 to 20 steps in large plants e.g., for the medical and optical industry. This can be especially complex because non-cleaning steps may be integrated in such plants like application of corrosion protection layers or phosphating. Cleaning can also be simple, the cleaning processes are integrated into other processes as it is the case with electroplating or galvanizing, where it usually serves as a pre-treatment step.
The following procedure is quite common:- Pre-cleaning
- Main cleaning
- Rinsing
- Rinsing with deionised water
- Rinsing with corrosion protection
- Drying
Each of these steps may take place in its own bath or chamber or in case of spray cleaning in its own zone (line or multi-chamber equipment). But quite often these steps may have a single chamber into which the respective media are pumped in (single chamber plant).
Besides equipment and procedure, cleaning media plays an important role as it removes the contaminants from the substrate.
For liquid media the following cleaners are in use: aqueous agents, semi-aqueous agents (an emulsion of solvents and water), hydrocarbon based solvents and halogenated solvents. Usually the latter are referred to as chlorinated agents, but there are also brominated and fluorated substances in (limited) use, that is why we have chosen the higher level classification. The hazardous traditionally used chlorinated agents TCE and PCE are nowadays only applied in airtight plants and the modern volume shift systems limits any emissions. In the group of hydrocarbon based solvents, there are some newly developed agents like fatty acid esters made of natural fats and oils, modified alcohols and dibasic esters.
Aqueous cleaners are mostly a combination of various substances like alkaline builders, surfactants, sequestering agents, etc. In the case of ferrous metal cleaning, rust inhibitors are built into the aqueous cleaner to prevent flash rusting after washing. Their use is on the rise as their results have proven to be in many cases as good or better than hydrocarbon cleaners. Additionally, the wastes generated are less hazardous resulting in less costly disposal.
Aqueous cleaners have advantages as regards to particle and polar contaminants and only require higher inputs of mechanical and thermal energy to be effective, whereas solvents more easily remove oils and greases but have health and environmental risks. In addition most solvents are flammable and create fire and explosion hazards. Nowadays, with the proper industrial parts washer equipment, it is generally accepted that aqueous cleaners remove oil and grease as easily as solvents.
Another approach is with solid cleaning media (blasting) which consists of the CO2 dry ice process: For tougher requirements pellets are used while for more sensitive materials or components CO2 in form of snow is applied. One draw back is the high energy consumption required to make dry ice.
Last but not least there are processes without any media like vibration, laser, brushing and blow/exhaust systems.
All cleaning steps are characterized by media and applied temperatures and their individual agitation/application (mechanical impact). There is a wide range of different methods and combinations of these methods:
- Blasting
- Boiling under pressure
- Carbon dioxide cleaning
- Circulation of bath
- Flooding
- Gas or air injection into bath
- Hydroson
- Injection flooding
- Megasonic, see megasonic cleaning
- Movement of parts (turning, oscillating, pivoting)
- Power wash process
- Pressure flooding
- Spraying
- Sprinkling
- Ultrasonic, see ultrasonic cleaning
Finally, every cleaning step is described by the time which the parts to be cleaned spends in the respective zone, bath, or chamber, and thus medium, temperature, and agitation can impact on the contamination.
Every item of cleaning equipment needs a so-called periphery. This term describes measures and equipment on the one hand side to maintain and control baths and on the other hand side to protect human beings and the environment.
In most plants the cleaning agents are circulated until their cleaning power has eventually decreased and reached the maximum tolerable contaminant level. In order to delay the necessary bath exchange as much as possible there are sophisticated treatment attachments in use, removing contaminants and the used up agents from the system. At the same time fresh cleaning agents or parts thereof have to be supplemented, which requires a bath control. The latter is more and more facilitated online and thus allows a computer aided adjustment of the bath. With the help of oil separators, demulsifying agents and evaporators aqueous processes can be conducted ‘waste water free’. Complete exchange of baths becomes only necessary every 3 to 12 months.
When using organic solvents the preferred method to achieve a long operating bath life is distillation, an especially effective method to separate contaminants and agents.
The periphery also includes measures to protect the workers like encapsulation, automatic shut off of power supply, automatic refill and sharpening of media (e.g., gas shuttle technique), explosion prevention measures, exhaust ventilation etc., and also measures to protect the environment, e.g. capturing of volatile solvents, impounding basins, extraction, treatment and disposal of resulting wastes. Solvents based cleaning processes have the advantage that the dirt and the cleaning agent can be more easily separated, whereas in aqueous processes is more complex.
In processes without cleaning media, like laser ablation and vibration cleaning, only the removed dirt has to be disposed of as there is no cleaning agent. Quite little waste is generated in processes like CO2 blasting and automatic brush cleaning at the expense of higher energy costs.
Properties
- Appearance
- Liquid
- Typical Properties
| Value | Units | Test Method / Conditions | |
| pH | Alkaline | - | - |
| Typical Dilution | 5 - 15 | % | - |
| Operating Temperature | 150 - 210 | °F |
Regulatory & Compliance
- Certifications & Compliance