Electronic product cleaning by using various CO2 based cleaning technologies

Regarding the automotive industry, the trend of substituting mechanical products by mechatronic and electronic ones becomes apparent. Correspondingly, the requirements for the industrial sector of remanufacturing have to be adapted, too. Modern electronic products are coated with sealants like silicone gels in order to protect them against external / environmental influences and undesirable access. Therefore, the demand for clearly defined specific processes increases. Here, especially the topic of technical cleanliness has to be considered. The research project eCleanER is exploring new cleaning technologies and equipment to remove these sealants by using various CO2 based cleaning technologies. Beside the relatively high technical effort, cleaning with CO2 shows lots of advantages. Used in solid phase as ice pellets or as snow it is an environment-friendly (lightly) abrasive cleaning medium. Modern processes using CO2 in supercritical phase provide a good solubility of organic substances. Moderate temperatures as well as a simple regeneration of the loaded gas through expansion shall be mentioned. Initial findings, in the field of electronic products cleaning, on the applicability of CO2 in various forms like CO2 pellets, CO2 snow and supercritical CO2 are presented in this paper.