Oxygen Cleaning for Quality and Safety

If you’re not familiar with the terminology, it’s not what it sounds like. Oxygen cleaning is a method of cleaning equipment intended for use with either liquid or gaseous oxygen.

Contaminants in an oxygen-rich system pose serious risks. Where used in industrial settings, oxygen cleaning eliminates fire or explosion danger due to flammable contaminants. When being used for medical purposes, oxygen cleaning removes contaminants that can cause direct bodily harm.

Extremely Clean Required

For certain applications, including in the petrochemical industry, extremely clean surfaces are required. Consider, for example, systems that work with high percentages of pure oxygen. This application requires that the presence of organic contamination such as oils and grease is kept to an absolute minimum. Particularly at elevated pressure, even the smallest traces can lead to spontaneous ignition. That is why this cleaning process is called UltraClean or oxygen-clean cleaning.

Oxygen and Fire

Contamination on components such as fats and dirt can increase the risk of self-ignition or explosion within the production process when it’s in contact with gaseous oxygen (GOX) or liquid oxygen (LOX). To prevent this, the Oxygen clean (O₂ clean) components must be processed. This reduces the risk of self-ignition due to contamination. Safety devices, pumps or pump parts, mechanical seals, valves and other components that are used in oxygen environments, require specialized cleaning operations.

An oxidizer such as oxygen is one of the three things needed for fire. The other two are a fuel (something to burn) and a source of heat or ignition. When an uninhibited chain reaction is added to an environment with a strong oxidizer, the result can be explosive.

Oxygen is used in many industries from chemical processing to pharmaceutical and healthcare. Because of its highly reactive nature, all systems where oxygen is present must be free of any contaminant(s) that could serve as a fuel for combustion.

UV Flashlights Used for Oxygen Cleaning Inspection

After oxygen cleaning, how to check if organic contamination has been removed? A fast, effective and efficient method is to use 365nm UV light. Illuminate the inspected area using a high-intensity UV Flashlight. Contamination will fluoresce under 365nm UV light and become easily visible. This convenient method has been widely used in gas companies and hospitals.

High-Intensity UV-A Flashlight XEPU-1530, featuring high UV intensity and compact design, is excellent for oxygen cleaning inspection.