Another interesting use for compressed air.
Over the years I’ve been in many plants that sand blast parts or equipment for cleaning, usually prior to priming and painting them. I also wondered what happened to the sand / paint chip mix in the bottom of the tray inside the blast shroud when the job was done. To me the residue seems to cry out “hazardous waste”.
Now, along comes a company that uses compressed air to sand blast, but instead of sand, they use ice.
I quote their web site:
Dry ice blasting:
- is a non-abrasive, nonflammable and non-conductive cleaning method
- is environmentally-friendly and contains no secondary contaminants such as solvents or grit media
- is clean and approved for use in the food industry
- allows most items to be cleaned in place without time-consuming dis-assembly
- can be used without damaging active electrical or mechanical parts or creating fire hazards
- can be used to remove production residues, release agents, contaminants, paints, oils and biofilms
- can be as gentle as dusting smoke damage from books or as aggressive as removing weld slag from tooling
- can be used for many general cleaning applications