Compressed carbon dioxide - a green washing fluid for medical parts

Precision parts cleaning is an important process step in the production of various industrial manufactured parts, like textiles, plastics or different medical implants. Besides the degreasing of parts and the removal of particles, the reduction of germs is an important feature for medical parts. Conventional cleaning systems use either isoparaffines or aqueous systems, creating big amounts of wastes. Another major drawback of aqueous cleaning processes is the use of surfactants and the required drying step especially for sensitive materials. The use of compressed or supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent for high pressure extraction is a well established process. Inspired by this, carbon dioxide was suggested to be an innovative fluid for textile cleaning or parts cleaning.