CLEANING & DEGREASING RAISING THE BAR
PANDEMIC IMPACT
Wirral-based Cleentek ( www.is.gd/ey0atP )
provides industrial cleaning and degreasing
machines in the UK and to the global market
including ultrasonic cleaning equipment has
been appointed distributor for Novatec Srl of
Italy, a specialist in the manufacture of
ultrasonic cleaning machinery and special
chamber cleaning machines.
Despite this positive development, head
of sales and marketing Kevin Whittle,
explains that business has been dif cult
since the pandemic started in March last
year. He says it started manufacturing in the
UK, and in normal circumstances, this would
have been supported with visits from Danish
colleagues.
“Due to travel restrictions, all support
had to be delivered virtually. Also, plans we
had for participating in trade shows and
continuing with expanding our network of
international distributors have had to be
postponed. Sales of equipment and
consumables are de nitely down in the
aerospace sector,” says Whittle.
Founded in 1999, Cleentek offers an
extensive range of standard and custom
made component cleaning machines, which
includes both spray wash systems and
ultrasonic cleaning equipment. All the
company’s industrial cleaning machines are
fabricated from stainless steel.
There have though been advantages for
Cleentek that have come out the pandemic,
similar to what is being seen at other
businesses, the opportunity to take a step
back and look at where investments need to
be focused in the future.
“The positive aspect (of the pandemic) is
that after years of being very busy, we have
had more time to consider the business
structure and put systems in place which
should help us to be more ef cient in the
future, when business hopefully bounces
back following the pandemic,” explains
Whittle.
Cleentek’s most popular industrial
cleaning machinery is high volume through
feed cleaning machines based on aqueous
spraywash technology, but this and other
products Whittle explains, have suffered in a
supressed market.
The company provides industrial cleaning
machinery to various sectors, including
automotive, aerospace, defence, energy and
medical, all of which have been heavily
impacted over the last 12 months.
The company’s main market is Germany,
which continues to remain strong, but it
supplies machines to global markets, which
have been heavily impacted.
Whittle is hopeful that 2021 will be a
more successful one for the industrial
cleaning and degreasing sector. “Hopefully,
there will be a large bounce back following a
successful vaccine programme and a return
to more normalised ways of business,” he
says.
Innovation, innovation
Stuttgart-based Acp Systems ( www.is.gd/QQMoxC ) has developed
a new two-component ring nozzle for a pulsating jet on its
quattroClean snow-jet cleaning technology, which it claims enables
further cost savings and technical advantages in CO2 cleaning
operations.
According to the company, their technology is an “economical
and reliable process” for the partial and full-surface cleaning of
a wide range of parts, while the trend is increasingly towards dry
cleaning processes, regardless of the product, manufacturing
phase, and next process in the production chain, such as coating,
joining, assembly or packaging.
The environmentally friendly alternative to wet chemical
processes also offers advantages if only speci c areas of a part
require a de ned level of particulate and/or lmic cleanliness,
such as bonding, welding or sealing surfaces, or when it comes to
cleaning ready-assembled components. The technology can also
be used to clean and deburr hard and brittle plastics like PEEK and
PPS simultaneously.
The cleaning medium used is liquid, non-corrosive carbon
dioxide, which has an unlimited shelf life. A by-product of chemical
manufacturing processes and biogas energy generation, this
cleaning medium is environmentally neutral.
The core of the cleaning system is a wear-free, two-component
ring nozzle through which the non- ammable and non-toxic carbon
dioxide is fed. On exiting the nozzle, the carbon dioxide expands to
form ne CO2 snow, which is then bundled by a separate jacketed
jet of compressed air and accelerated to supersonic speed.
When the easily focused jet of
snow and compressed air impacts
on the surface to be cleaned, a
combination of thermal, mechanical,
sublimation and solvent effects
occur. The interaction of these
four mechanisms of action reliably
removes particulate and lmic
contamination.
The aerodynamic force of the
compressed air carries away
the detached contamination,
which is then removed by an
integrated extraction system. Since
CO2 sublimates instantly under
atmospheric pressure, the parts are
dry at the end of the cleaning step and immediately ready for
further processing or packaging.
The new nozzle generates
a pulsating jet with a
frequency of 25 to 30
Hertz
With the aim of increasing cleaning ef ciency even more and
broadening the range of application, Acp has further developed its
nozzle technology. The result is a nozzle technology that generates
a pulsating jet with a frequency of 25 to 30 Hertz.
The company also believes the technology means shorter
cleaning times in many applications and the pulsating jet can
also reduce the consumption of carbon dioxide and compressed
air, thus cutting cleaning costs per part and contributing to higher
economic ef ciency.
www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets | February 2021 35
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