Elimination of TCE (Trichloroethylene) and compliance with Safety Norms

Ecoclean’s Minio 85C helps in Elimination of TCE (Trichloroethylene) and compliance with safety norms. This environment friendly compact machine takes minimal space on the shop floor and helps in reduction of overheads; while it achieves stringent cleaning results consistently. With its Minio 85C for cleaning of shock absorber parts Ecoclean in India has been able to win the patronage of its esteemed customers. The Customer is a leader in Indian auto components industry. The company provides widest range of Ride Control Products in India namely shock absorbers, struts, and front forks catering to Passenger cars, Utility Vehicles, Commercial Vehicles and Two wheelers.

Background:

‘Cleaning’ is very critical in the manufacturing process of shock absorbers, dust or oil contamination on the parts results in improper performance of the parts”. Customer therefore demanded an alternative to their existing trichloroethylene-based machine with a smaller footprint, achieving better cleaning results.

Challenge:

Customer’s range of products includes various types of shock absorbers, front forks and struts. These components are internal valving components. The major reason for the failure in valve systems is due to improper cleaning of parts before assembly.

  • Cleaning of sintered metals which are porous in structure.
  • Replacement of TCE (Trichloroethylene) in the new machine.
  • The type of contamination is in the form of oil and dust.
  • stringent cleanliness level not exceeding 100 microns and no contamination more than 0.1 milligrams.
  • 100% dry parts to avoid damping of the parts.
  • Footprint of the existing machine

Solution: Ecoclean’s Minio 85C fulfilled customers requirement for a compact, cost effective, hydrocarbon machine that eliminated the use of trichloroethylene. Minio 85C – hydrocarbon machine is not only an environment friendly solution but also has a very high built-in quality to meet the safety norms for the customer.

Features:

Minio 85C is a Compact modular design This system sets new standards as a result of features such as:

  • Efficient high-power injection flood wash, two flood tanks and filters contained in the basic system
  • Redundant safety equipment
  • Use of vacuum technology during cleaning, drying, distillation
  • Cleaning above flash point
  • Double full stream filtration
  • Eight cleaning programs
  • Inert gas welded pipelines

Benefits: Thus, we conclude that the customer benefited in many ways with the replacement of the new hydrocarbon machine.

  • It helped in increasing the productivity virtually by replacement of the old machines (complex handling mechanism) by one single machine, reduced material rejection due to consistent cleaning results. Reduced maintenance and higher uptime (~ 95%), no need to change cleaning media due to excellent regeneration system (online distillation). Electrical energy conservation by heat recovery Less energy consumption (< 9 kWh)
  • The hydrocarbon machine delivers repetitive and consistent cleaning quality.
  • The controlled emissions results in virtually zero solvent emission, use of hydrocarbons as cleaning media is less harmful to human and environment as compared to use of TCE, thus helped in compliance with environmental health and safety norms.
  • Moreover, the important fact that the replacement of the new machine has helped the customer in reducing the operating cost as compared to previous TCE based machine.