Soda Blasting Equipment Manufacturers

Soda Blasting Equipment Industry Information

Soda Blasting Equipment

Soda blasting equipment is a type of media blasting machinery, similar to sandblasting equipment; the practice of soda blasting is very mild form of abrasive blasting. In other words, soda blasting equipment cleans, strips and otherwise removes unwanted surface material specifically using sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, as its media. Note that, in this context, the word “media” refers to the material or materials used in a blasting procedure to clean, finish or shape a workpiece. To work, soda blasting equipment combines compressed air with baking soda, creating pressurized streams that, when propelled at a glass, metal, wood or plastic surface, clean or treat the surface without being too harsh. Soda blasting equipment can roughen smooth surfaces, smooth rough surfaces, remove coatings, carve, deburr, degrease, deflash, descale, etch into and peen a variety of products and parts. In addition, they are quite a bit like bead blasters, which are blasting machines that use high pressure streams of spherical media to achieve their purposes.

Soda blasting equipment is used extensively on industrial components, parts and products, such as nuts, bolts and equipment. However, it also has applications in electronics, automotive maintenance and restoration, aerospace, shipbuilding, construction, agriculture, woodworking and glass. It is used, for example, to gently clean printed circuit boards or remove coatings from them. In the automotive, aerospace and shipbuilding industries, it is used to resurface and clean engine components, remove rust, facilitate molecular steel passivation against rust, clean structural steel and, in shipbuilding alone, clean boat hulls. Soda blasting equipment is also used to clean and resurface decorative glass, heat exchangers, bridges, food processing equipment, masonry, timber and doors, oak beams, oak floors, stairs and bannisters and other building components. As a cleaning tool, soda blasting equipment is particularly effective at stripping paint and varnish, removing graffiti, soot and oil and cleaning and deodorizing fire and/or water damage.

Though they serve many unique purposes, all soda blasting machines share the some basic structural and functional components. Some of those shared basic elements include: the presence of an air compressor, the presence of a power source, the presence of a hopper or a vessel, the presence of hoses and the presence of a gun-like nozzle. As many applications call for it, soda blasting equipment is also often equipped with a moisture decontamination system. When assembled, the soda blaster’s air compressor connects to both the power source and the hopper. The hopper contains a powdered form of abrasive sodium bicarbonate. Hoses of different lengths connect on one side to the hopper and on the other end to the nozzle. To send out streams of pressurized baking soda, operators press a switch or a pull a trigger. These either push or pull air through the closed system, in this way generating a vacuum that pulls the soda through the hoses and out the nozzle. Soda blasts exit the nozzle at a pressure level typically around 20 psi, a pressure level that is very low in comparison to the pressures levels used by sandblasting equipment. The soda blaster’s blast nozzle may be made from a number of materials, but it must be composed of a material that can withstand pressure blasts. Most often, it is made of a ceramic or a metal like tungsten carbide.

Baking soda works excellently as abrasive media for a number of reasons. The first of these reasons is the fact that baking soda is highly friable and experiences micro-fragmentation upon impact. This means that the soda literally explodes away surface imperfections or contaminates, but does so so softly that it does not a byproduct. Along these same lines, another reason for the success of baking soda is its mildness; it can be used on sensitive materials without fear of damaging them. Also, baking soda is an environmentally friendly, water soluble, non-flammable, non-toxic and non-hazardous FDA-approved material. Consequently, it produces virtually no pollution and poses no to little threat to the workers operating the soda blasting equipment in which it is placed. The process itself produces less heat waste, less material waste and a much lower risk of substrate pitting than its peers like sandblasting. To find out what type of soda blasting equipment may serve your application the best, reach out to an experienced professional with your requirements and specifications.

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