As an important part of optical lens production, the surface cleanliness of optical lens mold will affect the quality and production efficiency of optical lens products.

During production and use process, optical lens molds are faced a variety of pollutants.These pollutants may come from the production environment, raw materials, operation process and later maintenance. Such as dust, metal debris and plastic particles in the environment. These particles may enter the mold through air flow or mechanical contact. At the same time, during the operation process, the operator's handprints left when contacting the mold, the cutting fluid used in the lens processing process, the lubricating oil on the mechanical equipment, the hydraulic oil, etc., may splash onto the mold during the operation, forming oil pollution. If it is not removed in time, it may cause pollution to the mold, making the optical lens manufactured cannot meet the production requirements or even cause damage to the mold.

Common decontamination methods include manual cleaning, solvent soaking and other methods. Manual cleaning Clean the mold surface by dipping a cotton swab or dust-free cloth in a small amount of alcohol. This cleaning method may still leave the cotton wool after cleaning or human leakage leads to incomplete cleaning of pollutants, making the cleaning work need to be cleaned repeatedly. Solvent cleaning should choose the appropriate solvent for different mold materials, and it is necessary to accurately control the soaking time to avoid corrosion or damage to the mold surface.

Carbon dioxide snow particle cleaning is a form of carbon dioxide cleaning that is different from traditional dry ice particles or blocks. After the expansion of liquid carbon dioxide released by high pressure, micron level solid phase carbon dioxide is obtained, and micron level dry ice particles with different particle sizes are produced by nozzle adjustment. The generated solid particles are driven by high-pressure auxiliary gas to obtain huge kinetic energy, impact the surface of the mold, realize dry cleaning and improve the cleaning efficiency of the mold.

In order to test the cleaning ability of CO2 snow particles, the pollution type of optical lens mold under working conditions was simulated, and the cleaning effect was observed and recorded through experiments. 

In precision manufacturing, the method of industrial ethanol wiping is used to remove dust, fingerprints and other pollutants on the surface of the mold. After wiping, there are still a lot of water marks and oil stains on the surface of the mold. After cleaning the surface with CO2 snowflake machine, the surface has no damage and is smooth.

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Due to the solubility of industrial ethanol, some stains on the surface after wiping are dissolved, making cleaning faster. To explore the cleaning ability of snowflake machine, the experimental group without industrial ethanol was set up and compared with the mold cleaning after wiping. Through the experiment, it can be seen that the snow machine can still meet the cleaning requirements on the mold surface without industrial ethanol treatment, but the cleaning time is relatively extended.

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A large amount of butter oil is attached to the surface of the optical mold, and the snow particles generated by the snowflake machine achieve cold solidification of the surface oil, and then the oil is stripped off the surface of the parts through the impact force of the snow particles and the blasting force of the sublimation and gasification of the particles. After cleaning, as shown in the figure, the mold surface has no damage and is smooth.（VID20240906155253.mp4）

CO2 snow particles can effectively clean the surface of precision parts, achieve efficient cleaning without damage to the parts, improve the production efficiency of the application industry, effectively save costs, and achieve green production. At the same time, this cleaning method can also be combined with the production line, through the investigation of the production line to develop a plan, can achieve semi-automatic or even fully automated cleaning of the production line.

Related product link: https://www.nanofiberlabs.com/products-category/nano-dry-ice-cleaning-equipment.html