How Much Electricity Is Used
When Cleaning With Bromothane™?

This is one of the main advantages of solvent cleaning when compared to water cleaning. Water cleaning uses a great deal of electricity while solvent cleaning uses far, far less. For customers in locations where electricity is expensive, vapor degreasing is the most energy efficient and affordable way to clean.

There are four design features in every aqueous cleaning system which make them very energy-intensive. These are:

• the energy it takes to power the numerous, high-pressure pumps to move the water around the machine,

• the energy it takes to heat the cleaning water,

• the energy it takes to dry the parts, and lastly

• the energy it takes to treat and repurify the water for re-use or disposal.

All of this additional work is required because of the inherent nature of the molecules of water. Basically, water has both a high surface tension, a high specific heat and a high latent heat of evaporation. These are molecular characteristics that no amount of fancy engineering can change.

[Photo, right] Most cleaning problems have their basis in surface tension issues, and customers making precision mechanical components experience this frequently. This photo shows the a set of tiny hollow pins which needed to be cleaned, inside and out. The Bromothane™ products, due to their low surface tension, low viscosity and high density, can easily clean these parts in these difficult circumstances.

Photo courtesy Branson Ultrasonics.

The high surface tension is a problem. It stops the water from going into tight spaces. And from there, the results are pretty straightforward: if you can wet, you can't clean. Water has the highest surface tension and worst "wettability" of any cleaning agents people could select.  That's why aqueous machine makers have the users (a) heating the water, and then (b) using a soup of chemical additives to boost the cleaning power and reduce surface tension, and finally they (c) those big pumps to spray the water-and-additive mix in to tiny components.

Then, the high latent heat and specific heat of water cleaning causes still more problems because this makes water a slow-drying cleaner. It takes a lot of heat and big, energy-sucking air knives to remove the aqueous residuals from the components.

At this point, if the water has picked up the contamination -- in addition to the cleaning additives, the water may now be holding oils, fluxes, lead from the PCBs and so on -- that water, the additives and the contamination now must be treated in a waste-water treatment system to re-purify the water. Normal treatment facilities include reverse-osmosis systems or multiple stacks of carbon and de-ionizing beds. Obviously, this takes more electricity and more pumps to move the waste water through these cleansing processes.

Compare this to solvent cleaning, particularly solvent cleaning with Bromothane™:

• There is no water to heat, which saves electricity. Instead the solvent is heated to only about 60° C/170° F  which, because these solvents have a lower latent heat and a lower specific heat, takes considerably less electricity.

• There are no big pumps required to push the solvent around, which saves electricity. Instead, the solvent moves by boiling, distillation and gravity.

• There are no blowers or "air knives" on vapor degreasers, which saves electricity. The solvent is contained inside the machine and the components come out dry. (In fact, motorized fans and fume hoods are not recommended near properly designed vapor degreasers because they increase solvent losses, so electricity is saved there, too.)

• There is no waste treatment facility required, which saves electricity, because the degreaser is automatically, inherently and continuously re-purifying and re-distilling the solvent.

The net result is that the typical vapor degreaser uses about 30 amps or power when cleaning and one-tenth of that energy in stand-by (night) mode; many of the smallest machines use standard household electrical connections! This contrasts with water-cleaning systems which often require 440 volt circuits and big power panels, and their power consumption is measured in hundreds and thousands of amps.

This is one case where simpler really is better.

Updated: March 16, 2004
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