Case Study Series – Pallet Cleaning

Q: What is the standard concentration for a pallet cleaning process?
A: It is not 100% concentration. In most cases you are diluting with DI water. The standard concentration is around 15%, it will depend on the soils you are cleaning off and the process that you have (Spray or Immersion).
Q: Are there any compatibility concerns with using a chemistry at such a high concentration?
A: In all our products we do long-term compatibility testing, and most of the tests are done neat. Make sure you work with your chemical provider, and make sure they have done the compatibility testing beforehand.
Q: What would bath life look like on a pallet cleaning process? And what about this one in particular?
A: When comparing to a de-fluxing process, this process is removing more gross soil. This leads to more soil in the bath, which leads to a relatively shorter bath life. Still, if you have filters on your machine, there are ways to assure you are removing the soils from the machine, and especially if you are keeping a consistent concentration, you should be able to keep a long bath life.
Q: Are 1 minute drip/dwell times between stages always necessary?
A: Not always, but when you are dealing with a tank-to-tank process, depending on what is in those tanks, it can be important to make sure you are not bringing different materials to different tanks. 1-minute times are not always necessary, but it can be good practice to make sure you have a dedicated drip time between stages.