Cold Clean – Dry ice blasting

INREI GmbH was the first service provider in Europe to introduce the American dry ice blasting process to Germany.

The in-house company process with the COLD CLEAN corporate symbol is a residue-free surface cleaning method. Using dry ice pellets as the cleaning medium eliminates the disposal of the conventional blasting and cleaning media because the dry ice pellets consist of CO2 that volatilizes on contact with the object being blasted. This has the effect of both reducing the costs of the work and being environmentally friendly. In addition, it also allows parts to be cleaned by blasting while in situ.

Because the dry ice that is used has no abrasive effect, the gentle surface treatment of the COLD CLEAN dry ice blasting process does not cause any material abrasion or alter the surface structure. This means that besides prolonging the service life of the plant, operating costs are also reduced while overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is increased.

In the COLD CLEAN dry ice cleaning, the dry ice pellets are applied to the parts to be cleaned at an air pressure of up to 10 bar, depending on requirements. The following effects can thus be utilized for cleaning:

Thermal effect – the cold shock causes supercooling and embrittlement of the coating/scale, causing cracks to form in the coating which then flakes off bit by bit.

Mechanical effect – the cracking and embrittlement enables the dry ice pellet to infiltrate the surface contamination. When the blasting medium hits the surface, the pellets sublimate with a 700–fold to 1000–fold increase in volume, thus completely blasting away the surface contamination.

The COLD CLEAN dry ice blasting process from INREI GmbH provides you with an environmentally compatible and economic cleaning system, which has proved successful particularly for the removal of anti-corrosion coatings, lacquers, paints, resins, adhesives, oils, grease, lubricants and bitumen.

These operations can either be carried out in a fixed blasting hall at our facility or at the customer’s premises. It is not necessary to erect blasting tents.

Among others, the COLD CLEAN process has already proved to be highly effective in these sectors:

• Automotive and shipbuilding industry
• Chemicals industry
• Printing and printing press industry
• Electronics industry
• Power industry
• Aircraft service centers
• Mold cleaning in the PU foam, natural rubber and vulcanized rubber and plastics processing industries
• Foundries
• Nuclear plants (decontamination)
• Food industry
• Paper industry