Technology

What Is Laser Cleaning?

Laser cleaning is the process of removing undesired material from a solid surface by irradiating it with a laser beam. By absorbing the energy of the laser beam, the targeted material will either turn into a gas and evaporate or the pressure of the interaction will cause the contaminants to break free from the surface. As the surface below does not absorb any energy, it stays untouched. Our laser cleaning technology is safe and eco-friendly.

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How Does It Work?

Laser cleaning works by shooting nanosecond-length pulses of laser light at undesired material, turning the particles into gas that’s either vaporised and/or vacuumed away. A fume extractor is used to capture the vaporised residues as they are removed for a dust free process with minimal clean-up. As the surface below does not absorb any energy, it stays untouched, resulting in zero damage The equipment is designed for safe use in a wide range of applications. For personnel safety, the operator, and nearby observers, wear special laser safety glasses that provides comfortable eye protection, in addition to other simple to implement procedures.

Laser Cleaning Works In The Following Way:

The laser sends short pulses of infra-red light to the surface

The contamination absorbs the laser light
The contamination heats up very quickly
The substrate remains cool
The difference in temperatures causes the contamination to either turn into a gas or the pressure of the interaction will cause particles “shred away” from the surface
Any remaining residue can be vacuumed off
Result: a clean, untouched surface restored to its original condition.

Laser Cleaning Technology is designed to replace surface blasting or high-pressure water and other traditional blasting methods that use materials such as water, dry ice, sand, glass or plastic as abrasive agents. Such traditional methods can be costly and messy. Our cleaning lasers are fully mobile and can be moved into almost any location powered by our mobile inverter generator or a single phase 120V electrical outlet.

Laser Cleaning will often not require any disassembly as the components can be cleaned as is, and the laser cleaning head can access many difficult locations. Noise is minimal, and you can usually talk over the top of it.