Case Studies

Spray, Immersion and Ultrasonic Cleaners

Product Highlight:  IC 2433-B

Product Type:  Concentrated Solvent Emulsion Cleaner Engineered for Spray and Immersion Operations

Customer: Manufacturer of Steel Internal Engine Components

Objective: Replace an Alkaline Cleaner, Solvent and Rust Preventative with an All-In-One Formulation

Description: The customer manufactures steel internal engine components, in this case, crankshafts with blind holes. They had been using an alkaline immersion cleaner to remove the machining coolant and associated metal fines and provide in-process rust and corrosion protection. However, the alkaline cleaner would oftentimes deposit a powdery residue once the product dried on the surface of processed components. Not only was this adversely affecting its corrosion protection capabilities, it necessitated a subsequent operation to remove the residue. Therefore, a straight solvent was used to post-wash the components by hand prior to the third of three operations, an application of a stand-alone rust preventative.

Due to the high cost and slow production rate of this unnecessarily complicated process, the customer sought a resolution. ICC was contacted, provided with the operational specifics and instructed to provide a solution.

Instead of simply replacing the cleaner with a more effective formulation, the ICC Technical Team decided to kill all three birds with one stone. Following painstaking research and development, a new product was born: IC 2433-B. A sample was prepared and sent to the customer for trials.

Conclusion: IC 2433-B is a water-soluble, solvent emulsion cleaner engineered to be successfully implemented in both spray and immersion applications. Due to the design of the components, it was necessary for the customer to employ immersion washers to ensure cleanliness. Therefore, in this particular application, ICC 2433-B was tested exclusively as an immersion cleaner at 5% by volume. There were many hurdles to clear: ICC 2433-B needed to effectively clean the manufactured components without leaving any unwanted and unsightly residues, eliminate entirely the solvent wash operation and provide short- to medium-term corrosion protection for processed parts.

The results exceeded the performance expectations of the customer and they switched to the new 2-in-1 cleaner and rust preventative, IC 2433-B. Operational costs were considerably reduced, chemical consumption plummeted to historic levels, the safety of the workplace was improved due to the elimination of the solvent post-wash, and the production rate increased dramatically due to the much more efficient, single-stage wash and rust preventative process.