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Metal finishing Q&As since 1989
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How to degrease aluminum honeycomb cores?
August 11, 2008
Q. Dear,
I have been using vapor degrease with trichloroethylene for cleaning aluminum honeycomb core.
But, I have to stop using it because of latest environmental regulation.
Can I use aqueous cleaning for cleaning aluminum honeycomb core?
Or, solvent manual cleaning?
Thanks in advance !
DC.Park
Chemical process engineer - Korea
A. Hi, Dong-cheol. The easiest fix, but it may be temporary, is to switch to an acceptable vapor degreasing solvent replacement like n-propyl bromide.
Converting to aqueous cleaning, while more difficult, may be the better long-term solution though. Usually ultrasonics are an important part of cleaning aluminum in aqueous solutions because both electrocleaning and strong alkalis are incompatible with aluminum.
Regards,
![Ted Mooney, finishing.com](../portraits/ted_mooney_beach.jpg)
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
August 2008
P.S. April 2013: Please check the latest updates on the safety and environmental suitability of n-propyl bromide before following this suggestion. Most silver bullets tarnish after we've acquired some years of field experience.
Q.
Hello there,
I work in a Electroless Nickel Plating plant and we are having a hard time degreasing the aluminium parts to be nickel plated.
The problem is we can't use a powerful detergent. The parts are first rinsed in the first tank containing the degreaser (Nitric Acid 50%). Then the piece is rinsed in the second tank with water and then to a tank with NaOH. We can't use detergent because our water tank isn't enough to clean all the detergent and it can't mix to the NaOH tank.
What other non-detergent degreaser could we use?
Thank you.
- Sao Paulo, Brasil
April 15, 2013
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