Surface World May 2019 Surface World May 2019 | Page 52
PRODUCTS & PROCESSES
Innovative developments for ultra-fi ne cleaning and activation
New cleaning solutions
for altered requirements
Coating, adhesive bonding,
sealing, painting – these are
just some manufacturing
operations calling for
profoundly clean, and
sometimes activated, part
surfaces. It is with these
requirements in mind that
Ecoclean has developed a set
of new cleaning solutions.
One of them combines wet chemical and
low-pressure plasma cleaning in a single
machine. Another innovation consists in
integrating diverse applications for partial
or full-surface cleaning or activation – e.g.,
atmospheric pressure plasma treatment,
laser, CO2 snow blasting and/or surface
inspection operations – into one processing
system. This toolkit enables operators to
cover virtually all pre-treatment needs.
In automotive manufacturing and its supplier
industries, mechanical engineering, aerospace
applications, precision and micro-mechanics,
medical and optical systems, electronics and
other fields of industry, component parts are
subjected to cleaning in order to prevent
quality problems in downstream processes
and to ensure flawless product performance.
In recent years, the focus in many industries
lay on removing particulate contaminants.
However, given new or modified production,
joining and coating technologies as well as
improved materials and combinations thereof,
the elimination of film-type residue – e.g., of
machining and preserving media, release
agents, silicones, other auxiliary production
compounds, or even fingerprints – is gaining
increasingly in importance. This is because
such residue can impair the quality of
subsequent processes, e.g., coating, welding,
adhesive bonding, sealing, painting or heat
treatment. Ecoclean (formerly Dürr Ecoclean)
addresses these evolving requirements with
a number of new solutions.
Ultra-fi ne degreasing by
a combination cleaning
process with integrated low-
pressure plasma treatment
For workpieces made of steel, aluminum,
glass, ceramics and some other materials
that are cleaned in batch processes –
whether in bulk or arranged in part carriers
– the company has developed a combination
cleaning technique merging wet chemical
cleaning with a subsequent plasma cleaning
step. To this end, a low-pressure plasma
cleaning operation is integrated into the
wet chemical cleaning line. Since virtually
all components needed for this cleaning
technology – e.g., vacuum, measuring and
control equipment – are already in place in
the manufacturer’s wet chemical cleaning
For workpieces made of steel,
aluminium, glass, ceramics and
some other materials that are
cleaned in batch processes –
whether in bulk or arranged in
part carriers – the company has
developed a combination cleaning
technique merging wet chemical
cleaning with a subsequent
plasma cleaning step.
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50
MAY 2019
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