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Supercritical carbon dioxide cleaning takes off
The first product of co-development by Cetim and DFD has been sold to an industrial manufacturer. This machine will be delivered in the spring.
DFD, a Bourget-du-Lac-based SME active in supercritical CO 2 part cleaning equipment recently sold its first machine. This comes three years after initiating a co-development with Cetim and marks the start of a new phase for the company. As a matter of fact, the machine is designed to use the “green solvent” to clean parts for the electronics industry at a bar turning facility and will be commissioned by June 2016.
This supercritical CO 2 cleaning machine was created from technology developed by CEA (covered by a patent of which DFD is the exclusive licensee). It degreases several thousand tiny polymer parts at once by exposing them to an atmosphere of CO 2 in its supercritical state. At the end of the process, the parts exit the autoclave clean, dry and at an ambient temperature; the solid particles are removed by gravity and the contaminants are carried and then separated from the CO 2 which is then recycled. The primary benefit of this process is that it is dry, clean and uses half the energy of conventional technologies which are based on chemical solvents. However, the initial cost of the machine may be slightly higher. “The use of high pressure requires more significant metal thicknesses for the autoclaves”, explained Dominique Rossignol, CEO of the company.
A range under construction
As part of a co-development contract with DFD, Cetim is working on the market study of the equipment, the eco-design, the functional analysis and the determination of the characteristics of the “Alpha” machine which was used to develop the process and the safety aspects.
This initial marketed product which is smaller than the Alpha machine will correspond to DFD’s entry level range. The SME is currently working on other larger models with a modular approach that will make it possible to use autoclaves of different sizes, to install several baskets per autoclave or even several autoclaves in order to adapt to each application. The product is intended for “all markets where it is necessary to clean, degrease and remove particles from mechanical parts”, stated Dominique Rossignol. Projects are currently being studied in sectors such as automotive, aeronautics, bar turning, as well as machining of hydraulic components.
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