Dry Ice Blasting Versus ...

If you are experiencing excessive downtime, high costs for secondary waste disposal or costly wear and tear on equipment it is time to assess your cleaning process and measure it against the A&H Dry Ice Blasting process.

A&H Dry Ice Blasting is an environmentally and equipment-friendly alternative to most conventional surface cleaning methods.

Compare your current cleaning process to the dry ice blast cleaning process and see how A&H Dry Ice Blasting can add value to your business through improved productivity, reduced waste and lower costs.

Ten Reasons Dry Ice Blasting is A Superior Cleaning Method:

1. Superior cleaning
2. Machines can be cleaned in place: dry ice blasting is a dry process and requires no disassemble/reassembly which means much less downtime
3. Quicker clean more runtime equals increased profits
4. Non-abrasive, nonflammable and nonconductive: dry ice blasting won't damage most substrates and can be used safely on electrical components
5. No secondary waste. This saves additional cleanup labor and expense.
6. Can get into tight spaces that many other methods can not
7. Environmentally friendly: meets USDA, FDA and EPA guidelines
8. Operator safety: no exposure to chemicals or grit media
9. Operator efficiency: not as labor intensive as traditional cleaning methods
10. Clean enough for the food industry, strong enough for everything else

Abrasive Blasting

This process results in some level of cleanliness and roughness with sand being the most common blasting media. Like all open blasting, sandblasting creates fugitive dust, and this dust is usually toxic. In all cases, it is a nuisance, creating mess and dramatically shortening the life of all nearby moving parts through wear. A&H Dry Ice Blasting uses nonabrasive dry ice that will not wear away the surface being cleaned and will not create additional waste for disposal. You can also take the A&H Dry Ice Blasting system to your equipment - cleaning it in place without risky and time-consuming material handling. A&H Dry Ice Blasting is the logical choice when no surface roughness is desired.

Soda Blasting

Soda Blasting is generally an effective cleaning method. However, Soda Blasting, like all open blasting, creates a great deal of secondary waste. Often, the time spent blasting is matched, if not doubled by the time it takes to clean up the extra waste soda blasting creates. In fact, the residue and waste left behind by soda blasting can adhere to wood and other substrates being blasted.

A&H Dry Ice Blasting uses nonabrasive dry ice that often surpasses the clean left behind by soda, but does so without leaving any secondary waste to dispose of. There is also some debate as to the effects soda blasting can have on the PH levels of the soil it comes into contact with after blasting. Since dry ice leaves no secondary waste, the entire project time is drastically reduced

High Pressure Water Blasting

While it is among the fastest methods of cleaning, water blasting nevertheless has limited applications. On steel surfaces, for example, it cannot create any specific surface profile, which is a key parameter in paint performance. Also, the use of water induces flash rusting, which makes paint or coating application more difficult and risky. Furthermore the use of water blasting on production equipment can result in severe electrical problems. A&H Dry Ice Blasting can be used on a variety of materials as well as on or near electrical equipment. Because dry ice evaporates upon impact, equipment stays clean and dry. Waste streams are minimized as no additional waste (such as wastewater) results from the cleaning process.

Solvent Cleaning

Solvent cleaning is perhaps one of the least efficient methods of cleaning machinery or other industrial equipment. The chemical solutions in the solvents are harmful to the environment, harmful to your employees and harmful to the very machines they are used to clean. The amount of time spent cleaning up the area after using solvents renders this method inefficient and the fees required to properly dispose of the waste can be astronomical. Solvents also require the time consuming disassembly of machinery, further reducing its cost and time effectiveness. The pellets used in dry ice blasting are small enough to reach into nearly every crack and crevice that needs cleaning. This virtually eliminates the need to disassemble any machinery prior to cleaning. The CO2 pellets are not harmful to the environment and there are no disposal fees associated with this method of cleaning.

Power Tool Cleaning

Power tool cleaning can provide a quick solution for flat, simple geometries-but it can also damage or wear down surfaces. A&H Dry Ice Blasting provides the benefits of power tool cleaning without added "wear" on expensive molds and other production tooling. Dry ice blasting is a cost efficient alternative to power tool cleaning while providing many added benefits. Dry ice blasting is effective on all surfaces, including machines with odd angles or hard to reach surfaces.

Hand Tool Cleaning

Quick, easy tasks that would take too long to set up for more mechanized approaches are often accomplished by employees who clean only defined areas and use specified hand tools that may end up damaging your equipment.

A&H Dry Ice Blasting is the ideal tool for these "easy" jobs. When performed by trained employees using specific nozzles and according to various other parameters, the cleaning process results in savings up to 75%.