We just acquired this Branson 250 Vapor Degreasing machine to better serve our parts cleaning side. Hit us up for all your cleaning and parts restoration needs!
What is Vapor Degreasing?
Vapor degreasing is the cleaning process which involves condensing solvents vapors on the object that is being cleaned. The process doesn’t require any water or scrubbing. Instead, the vapor-degreasing machine uses solvent vapors to cleanse and remove contaminants from parts. This process is used to clean various materials during the manufacturing process such as plastic, glass, metal, gold, and ceramic.
How does Vapor Degreasing work?
In its most basic configuration, a vapor degreaser contains two tanks that are called sumps, a metal basket, and bands of cooling coils. The first sump boils the solvent (boil sump) and the second sump (rinse sump) collects the solvent distillate.
As a secondary cleaning method, the parts may be dipped into a boil sump, then agitated with high-frequency, ultrasonic for additional agitation.
In this process, parts are placed in a metal basket that is lowered within the machine. The basket remains above the boiling solvent but below the cooling coils. The vapor degreaser boils the solvent. Solvent vapors rise but don’t escape because they’re trapped within the machine by a layer of refrigeration provided by the cooling coils.
The vapor then condenses on the surface of the parts dissolving the contaminants. As the solvent drips off the objects it removes the soils with it. This is a closed-loop process, so the solvent is cycled over-and-over again. The vapors rise into the cold trap, condense into liquid, then run back down into the rinse sump. The rinse sump then overflows into the boil sump. The soil stays in the boil sump and does not travel with the vapor, thus avoiding cross-contamination of both the parts and the rinse sump.
In Which Applications and Industries Are Vapor Degreasing Used?
In almost any industry where precision cleaning is paramount to the manufactured parts, vapor degreasing can be found. It is common in the automotive, aviation and aerospace, medical device manufacturing, jewelry manufacturing, and electronic assembly industries.
What Are the Benefits of Vapor Degreasing?
The clear benefits of vapor degreasing are superior cleaning results, repeatability, and lack of dependency on operator techniques and manual cleaning methods. The use of vaporized solvent avoids cross-contamination, which is a problem with cleaning methods that reuse either solvents or cleaning solutions from part-to-part. The use of solvents enables objects to dry quickly without a secondary drying process.