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-----Super cleaning rolled copper foil, How?
I am developing a new product. Process Development Engineer. It will be used in the electronics market and requires ultra-clean, hard as-rolled copper foil. The product uses rolls of thin foil(1/2 and one oz/ ft2) as raw material and output is in sheet form. As the foil is manufactured in a rolling mill it is typically "dirty" by clean room standards-- ours. We already use tacky rolls to pre-clean it and that is not enough. We are concerned with particles as small as 4 and even less than 10 microns. Bigger ones are totally fatal.
What is the best way, process, chemicals, systems, etc. to pre-clean this foil before I introduce it to my super clean processing? I am considering electro-cleaning and wet spray systems. Should I be looking somewhere totally different?
Brian Schreiber3M - Maplewood, Minnesota, USA
The molds for compact discs are electroformed, as are complex print heads, stampers for vinyl records, fresnel lenses, etc. 4 microns is not small, it's big (in some applications).See letter 2941 for a photo of an item where the plated path plus the gaps total 4 microns. Conventional wet processing plating lines are often installed in Class 100 clean rooms. So you are looking in exactly the right direction with electrocleaning and spray systems.
Ted Mooney, P.E.
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