Ultrasonic cleaner replaces trichloroethylene

To reduce use of trichloroethylene, an aerospace company is now using an ultrasonic system with an alkaline solution to clean instrument panels before dismantling.

Aquasolv Ultrasonic Cleaner-Plus (Aqua 22) from Mykal Industries is providing a leading aerospace company with the solution it needed to help reduce trichloroethylene ('trich' or 'trike') usage and VOC emissions.

Various aircraft instrument components had coatings of Red Oil or Skydrol lubricants - a fire resistant hydraulic fluid from Solutia - on them which needed to be removed as a pre-clean before disassembly.

This procedure plays a vital part in the maintenance process as the engineers are looking for worn components that need to be replaced.

The company had previously been using 'trike' but were looking to significantly reduce their usage levels due to Health and Safety regulations and, in particular, VOC emissions.

This led the company to look at ultrasonic cleaning systems to provide the solution they were looking for and replace the existing Trike system.

The next step was finding a suitable degreaser to work within an ultrasonic system which would provide the cleaning performance they required.

Due to the heavy duty nature of the lubricants Mykal suggested their Aquasolv Ultrasonic Cleaner-Plus (Aqua 22), a highly concentrated, low alkaline cleaner designed to remove oils, greases, lubricants and other difficult contaminants.

During trials the Ultrasonic Cleaner-Plus (Aqua 22) was used at 5% concentration levels for 5 minutes at 60-70 deg C before the components were given an ultrasonic hot water rinse and then dried.

The trials proved successful in cleaning the components to the required level and provided the advantages of being an aqueous system that removed 'trike' and VOC emissions from the process completely.

As a result, several ultrasonic tanks have now been purchased and regular orders are being placed for Aquasolv Ultrasonic Cleaner-Plus (Aqua 22).

If you would like to know more about Ultrasonic Cleaner-Plus (Aqua 22) or any other product from the Mykal Safe Solutions for Industrial Cleaning range please contact us.

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