In a very early blog written in 2011 I talked about the “Scotch” tape test for cleanliness. At that time I did not address quantification of the results other than as a visual assessment. In addition to evaluating general cleanliness, this technique is being found particularly applicable when determining the cleanliness of substrates that “shed” …
I just spent a couple of hours re-reading several of the ISO specifications related to “Millipore” testing including ISO16232-3 and -7. I put the word Millipore in quotes here because although these are normally called Millipore specifications, none of them mentions the word Millipore. (Millipore happens to be the name of a company that developed …
Until recently, I was only able to theorize about the mechanism involved in the perforation of aluminum foil by ultrasonic cavitation. I no longer have to theorize! My theory had always been that perforation of aluminum foil was due to the repeated flexing of aluminum foil as cavitation implosions occurring on opposite sides of the foil …
If you’ve heard of ultrasonic cleaning you’ve probably heard of the aluminum foil test. The practice of putting a piece of aluminum foil into an ultrasonically activated tank of water probably began as a novelty demonstration. The holes produced in the aluminum foil by the collapse of cavitation bubbles at least showed that something interesting …
Using the right amount of chemistry is important to successful industrial cleaning. Since there is no standard convention for expressing the amount of chemistry to use, it sometimes takes a little effort to sort things out. Chemistry is supplied in either liquid or powder form with several different conventions for each. Let’s look at liquids …
Drying is the last and often a critical part of a cleaning process. In many cases it is also the most time and energy consuming. It is often the most difficult part of the process to specify and control. Although there are several drying technologies available, blowing with hot air is simple and by far …
With its well-deserved credentials for chemical resistance and durability, stainless steel and particularly 316 grade stainless steel is a “go to” for the fabrication of ultrasonic cleaning tanks. Although it performs well in most applications, there are still those where stainless steel has its limitations. Stainless steel achieves its “stainless” characteristic by developing a very …
Today’s industrial parts cleaning processes commonly employ at least three distinct steps. The basic steps are Washing, Rinsing, and Drying. Each step is custom tailored to the overall requirement with the range of options for each much broader than one not intimately involved with the technology might imagine. In some processes, in fact, it is …
I will be the first person to advocate cleaning trials in the laboratory as an important step in the development of a cleaning process. I will also be the first to admit that in over fifty years of lab testing I have made (and hopefully learned from) more than a few mistakes made in the …
There’s an old adage – “One Hand Washes the Other.” Although this adage is seldom applied to cleaning technology, it certainly could be. In fact, most successful cleaning consists of a combination of chemistry (soap, solvent or whatever) and some kind of added mechanical force to enhance or enable the cleaning process. If one could …
English
Spanish
Chinese
Canada
Mexico
United Kingdom
