Intelligent Process Control with Lab-on-a-Chip and AI-Based Smart Drying. 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 requirements 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 growing demand for more energy- and resource-efficient cleaning in order 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 while also meeting documentation requirements through the continuous 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 according to 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 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 up an enormous range of possibilities for cleaner and bath analysis without having to equip each bath with different sensors and regardless of the cleaning or passivation medium and process used. With the system-integrated setup, 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 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. Bath contamination 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 accurate display of the results and, if necessary, initiates appropriate actions, 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, while the rest of the procedure is 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 a 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 excessively long based on a worst-case scenario, resulting in increased energy consumption, correspondingly high costs, and reduced productivity.
The goal is therefore to obtain optimally dried parts from the system while minimizing energy and time requirements. Ecoclean has achieved 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.
In order to control the drying process in a time- and energy-optimized manner, the AI model of the Smart Drying technology was first trained using 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 humidity, temperature, and pressure parameters 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 involve the supply of warm air. Essential for the use of Smart Drying technology are process-stable, reproducible operations that ensure consistent conditions in the process chamber. Worn seals or sensors that are not calibrated regularly, for example, can lead to changes in these conditions.
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.
For Information:
Ecoclean GmbH
52156 Monschau, Germany
Tel. +49.2472.830
E-mail: info.monschau@ecoclean-group.net
www.ecoclean-group.net
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