| Dr Long Nghiem with Liam Pettigew testing out their environmentally f... Dr Long Nghiem with Liam Pettigew testing out their environmentally friendly research at the Area 21 Maintenance Workshop at BlueScope |
Research shows water can replace solvents for machinery cleaning
21 Aug 2007 | Bernie Goldie
In a plus for the environment, an engineering student at the University of Wollongong has achieved promising results for using water instead of solvents to clean industrial machinery parts.
Liam Pettigew, originally from the Northern Territory, is a final year student in UOW’s School of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering. He recently won the inaugural Ted William Scholarship for environmental engineering students. Liam is undertaking his research under the supervision of Dr Long Nghiem.
The scholarship gave Liam the opportunity to undertake a project that will not only help the environment but also save money for manufacturing industries.
Over the past three months, Liam has been conducting a research project to evaluate the effectiveness of water-based parts cleaning technology over its traditional solvent-based counterpart.
“So far his tests show that performance of the water-based technology has been outstanding,” Dr Long said.
“The demand for parts cleaning devices in maintenance workshops in a region like the Illawarra is huge”, he said.
“Using solvent-based products means much of the toxic solvent will either end up in the air or waterways hurting the environment.
Liam said that for the water-based cleaning devices to work effectively they should be equipped with a microfilter and oil skimmer to prolong the cleaning solution life time.
“Otherwise, this technology may not be effective at all,” he said.
Liam and Dr Long will present the outcome of this research work to an environmental conference in Cairns this December.
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