ROMEO Technology

The activities and role of VV-net in this alliance will primarily include being involved in:

Besides offering proprietary and advanced products and solutions, our main focus is to create and power up this ‘romeo’ alliance. We are concentrating on getting the selected partners on board for development, support, production and world-wide marketing, sales and service.

Our ROMEO technology is developed to locally (on-site) clean or decontaminate often expensive production tooling and aid or reject parts that are valuable enough to recover and reuse. The product range we are developing is built around different processes in order to attain an well balanced range of solutions that can either be supplied as standardized products or can be modified in customized well fitting turn-key systems for our customers, all depending on their specific needs and requirements.

Summary

The heart of our ‘SOLANO’ systems is the proprietary ‘suspended particle reactor’ - a quite universal and unique complex physicochemical conversion process - which is ideally suited for high capacity, fast and high quality cleaning demands. The parts to be cleaned are stacked in or on a carrier, which is subsequently submerged into the bubbling reactor like in a liquid, at medium temperature (usually between 420 and 480 °C), by means of a customized handler system (or manually for the smallest systems). When the fast batch process is finished - after usually less than an hour - the carrier can be safely removed from the reactor, which can immediately receive a next batch.

For some application a longer cleaning time is acceptable, especially for customers with limited capacity requirement or small parts, our ‘ZONDA’ systems are often a good solution. They are built around a heated and controlled atmosphere process, also operating in the same temperature range, but they don’t use the suspended particles as a medium. This process may require some additional post-treatment, is generally a bit slower of course, but is for example the preferable solution for parts that should be kept away from particles, such as spinnerets with very small holes. Zonda systems can easily be loaded manually or with a carrier which slides horizontally into the reactor.

It really depends on the size of the parts, the daily or weekly amounts, the required finishing quality and several other aspects which process is best suited, and we are happy to have all important processes in our range so we can advise on the best choice or the best available options. Both processes are well proven, very reliable, flexible towards operating conditions and come in several standard size or can be built to order for larger or more complex requirements or needs. There are many ‘thermal cleaning systems’ on the market, but few specialists that make it their core business to permanently develop a well balanced and affordable but high quality product range, with different processes, in up to date and modern packages or products, and have long experience and market knowledge as a basis for professional advice and service.

VV-net develops well chosen in-house cleaning solutions, creates standard product lines, can help to optimize well organized sales and service departments, is able to work out more complete on-site operational services and has access to external cleaning centers for customers with special demands. We are actually liaising with a few other specialists in the market to create a leading n°1 alliance with these partners to jointly develop and maintain a complete range of products and services and to be an authority in this branch to help and advise our customers and government instances.

Typical applications for which our solutions and technology is particularly suited:

‘SOLANO’ suspended particle reactor

As soon as the system has reached normal operation temperature, a carrier (1) with the objects is submerged in the suspended particle reactor, as if it were a boiling liquid. The contamination on the objects will essentially convert to gas and fine inorganic powder very quickly, all while most of the energy contained in the contamination helps to heat the reactor.

Gas and inorganic powder are carried with the flow through the reactor (2), and led into a dust separation device, which can be a cyclone or a barrier filter (3). The inorganic powder is (4) is collected and can be removed daily, and the cleaned exhaust flow (5) is released into atmosphere.

‘ZONDA’ controlled atmosphere reactor

When the door (1) of the controlled atmosphere – cold or preheated - is opened, the parts can be loaded onto the stacking tray (2) which slides out of the unit automatically for easy access. Once closed, the programmed cleaning cycle starts. The process may contain a melting phase to remove most of the polymer or contamination from the delicate parts, in which case the melted material (3) can be removed prior to the start of the real cleaning cycle, or left in the unit to slowly evaporate later in the cycle.

The cleaning cycle itself takes typically 1.5 to 3 hours, depending on the parts and the quantity of polymer to be removed. The atmosphere – temperature and oxygen content - in the reactor is permanently controlled to keep temperatures right all the time and to avoid overheating or burning at all times. The reactor is electrically heated (4), and the gases leaving the reactor pass through an ignition and postcombustion chamber (5) to clean the exhaust flow (6) before it is released into atmosphere.