Letter 26017

Cleaning of Aluminum without Degreasing  

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I am working in a company named SSNP and we are dealing mainly with manufacturing of metals parts mostly Al and SS We need to clean these parts before sending them to customers remove all the oil residues and carbon since one of our customer machines is very sensitive to. We know how to clean SS but we are looking for a formula for cleaning Al 6061, we would not like to use degreazer we are looking for alkaline cleaners that don''t attack Al and carbon remover.

Nissim Poliker
Engineer - Netanaya, Sharon, Israel

Aluminum is amphoteric, dissolving in both acids and alkalis. Further, aluminum can't be electrocleaned. So if you rule out solvent degreasing, your options are limited. But you can use a hot non-etching alkaline soak cleaner; these are available from any plating process supplier, as opposed to brewing your own. Ultrasonic cleaning can be a big help for aluminum.

I'm not sure quite what you mean by 'carbon remover', but you do not want to allow any heat treatment processes with the oil still on the parts.

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

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