On the occasion of the 32nd Industrial Parts Cleaning Conference in Dresden tomorrow, Wednesday, the German Industrial Parts Cleaning Association (FiT) will announce the winner of the third round of the FiT2clean Award, which is endowed with 10,000 euros. The association presents the award annually for outstanding achievements and solutions to a current challenge in industrial parts cleaning.
Companies from the parts cleaning sector were able to apply in three subject areas: Innovation, Ecology and QS-Rein 4.0. The jury has now selected three finalists from all the applications, who will present their application at the Industrial Parts Cleaning Conference on September 11, 2024 in Dresden.
Laboratory extraction usingCO2 snow blasting
The first finalist is ACP Systems AG in Ditzingen. It has developed a process to useCO2 snow as an extraction medium for cleanliness analyses in the laboratory for the first time.CO2 snow blasting is an established process for industrial component cleaning. According to the supplier, it is more effective at removing small particles of less than 50 micrometers than suction or blowing with compressed air. In the semiconductor industry, the process is used to remove particulate contamination down to the sub-micrometer range. TheCO2 used as a cleaning medium is chemically inert, not electrically conductive and leaves no residue on the components. If snow blasting is used as an extraction process for particles, components can therefore be fed directly back into the production line and used after the cleanliness test.
According to the state of the art, the technical cleanliness of components is tested by cleaning in the laboratory (extraction) with a liquid medium. The evaluation is carried out by filtering the liquid and counting the particles on the filter surface using a microscope (VDA 19.1). However, the components tested for cleanliness can no longer be returned to production and must be disposed of. This can lead to assemblies with a value of several thousand euros per assembly having to be scrapped. When extracting particles from the component with air by blowing or suctioning them off, the cleaning effect for particles smaller than 50 micrometers is greatly reduced. If particles adhere more firmly to a surface due to the presence of filmic/chemical residues, even larger particles can no longer be reliably removed with air and recorded in the cleanliness analysis.
Cost-effective cleaning of PCB magazines
The second finalist, Kist + Escherich GmbH from Munich, has taken on challenges in electronics production: PCB magazines are used there for the in-house transportation of PCBs. When such PCB magazines are used in pick-and-place machines, particles accumulate in the magazine slots that can be carried over into downstream products or processes. Conductive particles in particular can lead to defects or failures in electronic components.
At present, these transport containers are not cleaned at all or are only cleaned manually in certain areas. Cleaning is expensive, time-consuming, resource-intensive and complicated in terms of drying, which is why it is only carried out in individual cases.
The supplier has therefore developed an innovation for cleaning. It enables an all-round, contact-free and dry process. The integrated electrostatic discharge is optimized for ESD applications and complies with the current IEC 61340-5-1:2016 standard, residual charge (ionic equilibrium) < 35 volts. The dust and foreign particles are detached from the surface by means of ionized compressed air through rotating nozzles, captured by an extraction flow and fed to an integrated filter unit. The cleaning machine can be used both inline and offline, and feeding via transport systems is also possible. The systems can be programmed for different magazine sizes.
Measure particle load via app
The third contender for the Fit2Clean Award is PartikelART Solution GmbH from Dortmund. It focuses on the inadequate measurement frequency of the particle load on components and containers. The reason for this is the high financial and time expenditure involved in preparing a cleanliness analysis in accordance with VDA19.1. At the same time, the cleanliness laboratories in the companies show a very high workload, which unacceptably extends the response time to critical contamination. Another challenge is an alternative approach to the error-prone classification of particles into metallic (shiny) and non-metallic (shiny) with polarized light and manual follow-up inspection.
The company has developed an app that allows particles to be measured and classified into metallic, non-metallic and fibers using commercially available smartphones. The camera of the respective smartphone serves as the optical system, which compensates for the lack of optical magnification of the microscope with four to twelve megapixels. This makes it possible to reliably measure particles as small as 200 micrometers using the one-shot method. Comparative measurements by Fraunhofer IPA and the company CleanControlling show measurement deviations of less than 10 percent.
In addition to monitoring the particle load per component, the app can also be used to determine the surface cleanliness value or - as part of the analysis of environmental cleanliness - the Illig value. Although the larger surface area leads to a reduction in the accuracy of the measurement of the individual particle, this is insignificant in this application due to the measurement in size classes. The analysis with the app is in any case more cost-effective and faster than a standard cleanliness analysis.