Dry ice blasting technology
DRY ice blasting is a new cleaning and maintenance technology, developed by Cold Jet , using carbon dioxide (or "dry ice") pellets in a propellant stream to snap freeze and blast away surface materials.
On impact, the pellets instantly vapourise so the process produces zero secondary waste. The process is non-abrasive and dry.
Using totally recycled CO2 this is one of the most environmentally friendly cleaning solutions.
Dry ice blasting effectively cleans via thermal shock rather than abrasion or chemical reaction, without damage to production equipment.
Because dry ice blasting does NOT produce a secondary waste stream (as opposed to water or grit blasting) dry ice blasting can be conducted almost anywhere without fear of leaving waste materials behind which can cause problems with production equipment.
This also eliminates the need to capture and dispose of a secondary waste stream, such as containing the water or grit and then disposing of large quantities of waste water (obviously at further cost).
Water and sand blasting are now being avoided due to the concerns issued by the EPA, environmental groups, and councils, for environmental and safety reasons.
The benefits of dry ice blasting include:
* Saves teardown, movement, cleaning, setup and startup times.
* Reduces the risk of loss or damage to equipment.
* Drastically reduces total downtime.
* Minimising labour costs for cleaning.
* Provides increased production time for valuable production equipment.
Dry ice blasting has already been adopted by major Australian food manufacturers.
Specific to packaging equipment, dry ice blasting is suitable for cleaning adhesive, ink, product spills, and general buildup from packaging/production equipment, quickly and easily, leaving a completely sterile environment.
The technique produces safer environments to work in, and to work with, and provides cleaning solutions for problems that previously could only be addressed in shutdowns.
Cold Jet sells the dry ice blasting equipment, the dry ice media, and also provides a contract cleaning service for organisations that do not have sufficient need to own their own equipment.
29-Oct-2003