Clean Source Newsletter Archive

Picture a new product. It’s a thing of beauty – miniature ( about 10% the size of the current product), lightweight, uses new alloys, polymers, coatings. It combines 3D printed metal with convoluted surfaces and traditional assembly. Marketing has rolled out a stellar campaign, promising high reliability at low cost. […]

Microbes could be growing in your cleaning process bath. Minimize unwanted microbes to achieve a more consistent, productive manufacturing process. Those of you not involved in producing pharmaceuticals or in final assembly of medical devices may think microbial contamination doesn’t apply. Think again! Let’s consider conditions that you and I […]

In contrast with animals, plants don’t poop. While plants may release volatile chemicals, like pheromones and fragrances, more often they produce and store a wide variety of complex compounds. These chemicals may be useful not only to the plants themselves but also to people. Refined plant materials or extracts are […]

We start with a shameless plug for the Product Quality Cleaning Workshop21 (PQCW21). The May workshop is virtual, convenient, cost-effective, and informative. PQCW21 provides the skills to become the expert that saves your company time, money and aggravation. PQCW21 gives you the weapons to defend critical cleaning process choices to […]

Some children hang out together constantly – they are inseparable. Many solvent blends for critical cleaning applications are marketed as “azeotropes” or “azeotrope-like”. In some ways azeotropes behave like childhood best friends – under certain conditions, the molecules seem inseparable. As a product manufacturer, it makes great business sense to […]

‘Tis the season to be brave – to get educated, to speak up, to consider your critical cleaning options, to strategize. The U.S. EPA, under what is sometimes referred to as TSCA reform, is looking not only at the environmental impact of certain chemicals but also at worker exposure. As […]

Cleaning requires dislodging a soil and carrying it away from a surface. For this to happen, the cleaning or rinse fluid must energetically access the surface. However, a boundary layer of liquid with reduced flow velocities can impede cleaning. A similar effect occurs in flowing waterways, like a river or […]

Cleaning processes tend to build up; one layer of cleaning is added to another. The overall cleaning process becomes something that resembles sedimentary rock (or, to the surface of the desk of the Rocket Scientist). Recently, a manufacturing engineer involved in optics fabrication, called to brainstorm and, frankly, to vent. […]

“To err is human, to forgive divine,” Alexander Pope (1) To err is not an option in critical product cleaning. The stark reality for manufacturers is that error leads to low yields, unsatisfied customers, lost business. Error, often resulting from ineffective or avoided critical product cleaning, can jeopardize patients, passengers, […]

For new perspectives on effective cleaning, simply go to a trade show. What trade shows? Explore cleaning options by continuing our virtual tour of the 2019 parts2clean trade fair in Stuttgart. In the first installment of “Cleaning Perspective “(1), we discussed cyclic nucleation, laser and CO2 processes. We continue with […]

Read this if you use free-range, cage-free cleaning agents to clean products during manufacturing. Read this if you clean with halogenated solvents. Even if you don’t use halogenated solvents, there is a good chance that the performance of your current cleaning processes depends on manufacturers in your supply chain who […]

Successful manufacturers make it a point to look at cleaning options from new perspectives. They picture how those options can improve production – whether or not they plan an immediate change in critical product cleaning. There are lots of ways to gain new perspectives, including actual travel to programs, webinars, […]