Dry Ice Cleaning Wax Boilers
Optimum Dry Ice Blasting have recently seen a massive demand for the cleaning of wax boilers. Our aggressive yet non-abrasive process is excellent at removing 100% of the wax build up without damaging the surface it is bound onto.
Traditional methods of cleaning would involve hand scraping the surface, in itself an extremely tough, time consuming task. The problem with this cleaning method is the very nature of abrasively removing the wax will scratch a ‘key’ onto the substrate of the vessel. In turn this will make the wax bind even stronger to the boiler surface making it harder to remove the next time it is scheduled for cleaning.
Dry ice cleaning de-bonds the wax build up from the surface by the process of kinetic impact, shrinking the contaminant with the sheer cold of dry ice before a rapid expansion of the Co2 dislodges the wax from the boiler surface. The surface of the wax boiler is left clean and free of debris and any abrasion.
On a recent project for Rolls Royce Aerospace a time comparison was carried out. We saved the company 18-man hours of labour time and 8 hours of downtime/lost production on just 1 machine. A massive saving!
Is Dry Ice Blasting A New Process?
Dry Ice Cleaning for wax boilers isnt a new process. We have been using this method for over 8 years. However, the recent upturn has been driven by a directive from insurance companies. It was witnessed that angle grinders where being used by many companies to cut the wax away. The margin for error in this method was considered too high a risk as the grinder can strike, and therefore peen the metal barrel. This can then cause a catastrophic rupture while the vessel is under pressure, and a risk that the insurers simply will not cover.
Dry ice blasting has been passed as the safest, quickest method to decontaminate a wax boiler by all the large insurance companies. If you need to know more, please click here to see some of our video footage of the process.