Automatic control of cleaning and drying quality, resource consumption, and costs

With the new Smart Drying technology, AI enables intelligent control of drying processes using warm air and vacuum with the aim of minimizing energy consumption and cycle times. The next step is to use AI to control and optimize cleaning and rinsing processes. (Image source: Shutterstock / Frank60)

When it comes to consistently high process quality and savings in energy, resources, and operating costs, the innovative LOC system opens up completely new perspectives through automated analysis of cleaning and rinsing baths based on various measurement methods. (Image source: Ecoclean GmbH)

For determining the actual cleaner concentration, the methods available are titration, pH value, conductivity, and surface tension measurement, while bath contamination can be detected using fluorescence and conductivity measurement. The measurement methods can be combined as needed, and additional functions or new measurement methods can be easily integrated. (Image source: Ecoclean GmbH)

Consistently high process quality and savings in energy, resources, and operating costs—these are the demands that water-based cleaning processes must meet today. To meet these requirements reliably and efficiently, Ecoclean has developed the innovative Lab-on-a-Chip system. It maintains the quality of the cleaning and rinsing baths at an optimal level through automated analyses based on various measurement methods. The new Smart Drying technology enables AI-supported, intelligent control and optimization of drying processes with hot air and vacuum.

Increasing demands on component quality are leading to more complex cleaning processes. Specified cleanliness specifications must be maintained in a stable and reproducible manner. This is increasingly associated with higher documentation requirements for process parameters. At the same time, there is a demand for more energy- and resource-efficient cleaning to reduce the CO₂ footprint and costs. This is offset by a shortage of skilled personnel with the appropriate training and cleaning expertise.

Ecoclean is responding to this situation with innovative developments such as the Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) system and Smart Drying technology for automated monitoring and intelligent control of cleaning quality. These solutions ensure that cleaning and drying processes run optimally and meet documentation requirements through constant recording of parameters.   

LOC – comprehensive cleaner and bath analyses with just one system

Until now, a wide variety of sensors have been required to analyze the concentration of cleaning or passivation media and bath contamination, which are used in the baths in accordance with the respective medium or process. The measurements also usually require numerous manual interventions. The time-consuming determination of bath quality often leads to cleaning media being added regardless of consumption. Likewise, bath changes are still sometimes carried out on a time-dependent basis. Both can lead to suboptimal bath and thus cleaning quality, as well as a waste of resources.   

This changes with the new LOC system, which can be integrated into both multi-bath immersion and chamber systems. The combination of different measurement methods in a single system opens an enormous range of possibilities for cleaner and bath analysis. And this without having to equip each bath with different sensors and regardless of the cleaning or passivation medium and process used. With the system-integrated systems, sampling is carried out automatically from the respective stations connected to the evaluation unit.

Titration, pH value, conductivity, and, for the first time, surface tension measurement are available for determining the cleaner concentration. In modular cleaning systems, the latter allows the surfactant content in the bath to be determined separately, enabling targeted re-dosing of this component. The contamination of the baths can be determined by means of fluorescence and conductivity measurements. In the future, these measurement methods will be supplemented by methods for determining total organic contamination (TOC) and particle measurement. The measurements to be performed on the sample taken from the bath can be entered via the system control. Between sampling from the baths, an automatic rinsing system ensures that the results are displayed accurately on the display and, if necessary, appropriate actions are initiated, such as the addition of medium or water or a bath change.

With the standalone version, which is also available, the samples are taken manually from the baths to be tested, and the rest of the procedure is also automatic. With both alternatives, the measurement methods can be combined as required, and additional functions or new measurement methods can be easily integrated.

Smart Drying – optimal drying with minimal time and energy consumption

Drying is not only one of the most energy-intensive processes, but also the bottleneck in parts cleaning due to the time required. Nevertheless, problems often arise – especially when different components need to be cleaned and dried. To be on the safe side, drying processes are often designed to be too long based on a worst-case scenario, which results in increased energy consumption with correspondingly high costs and reduced productivity.

The goal is therefore to obtain optimally dried parts from the system with minimized energy and time requirements. Ecoclean has implemented this with its AI-supported, intelligent Smart Drying technology for combined hot air vacuum drying processes. The basis for this is a humidity and temperature sensor specially developed for this application, which is now standard in various types of the manufacturer's systems.

To control the drying process in a time- and energy-optimized manner, the AI model of the Smart Drying technology was first trained with data from thousands of drying tests with a wide variety of components and target parameters. Based on this know-how, the AI evaluates the quality of the respective drying process by analyzing the parameters of humidity, temperature, and pressure in the process chamber. It then decides which action is most appropriate for optimal drying. For thin-walled parts or plastic workpieces, for example, this may be the supply of warm air. Essential for the use of Smart Drying technology are process-stable, reproducible processes that ensure consistent conditions in the process chamber. Worn seals or sensors that are not calibrated regularly, for example, lead to changes here.

One of the next development steps at Ecoclean is to transfer the findings from machine learning to the use of AI for the control and optimization of cleaning and rinsing processes.