Twelve experts offer their viewpoints on the current state and future outlook of critical cleaning and contamination control.

“Cleaning is value added. It’s like preparing fish. You can have the highest quality fish. You can have the best recipe.You can be the world’s finest chef. If you don’t clean that fish properly when you first catch it, you will fail.” This apt analogy, providedby Ed Wilson, National/International Equipment Sales Manager at Baron Blakeslee,a Division of Enviro Tech International headquartered in Melrose Park, IL, sumsup the importance of cleaning in the manufacture of high-value product.

A recent Controlled Environments Magazine survey posed the question: “Do you use aqueous or solvent cleaning?” The results were approximately 84 percent aqueous and 16 percent solvent. It occurred to me that for most critical applications, the choices are not a simple either/or. Critical and industrial cleaning processes occupy very specialized, very niche markets; so getting a handle on usage and trends can be a challenge. In the interest of achieving an overview of practices and trends in critical and industrial cleaning, I put together questions and discussion points on this topic. In a series of telephone conferences, I attempted to capture the views of twelve individuals with expertise in cleaning. To obtain an expeditious, comprehensive snapshot, I selected people who supply products used in critical cleaning including cleaning agents, cleaning equipment, and cleaning processes.

This is the first of two articles capturing the very thoughtful responses of the twelve expert participants. Each brings a particular viewpoint and professional history, and each person sees a bit of the picture of critical cleaning and contamination control. I know you will find the comments helpful in gaining an understanding of the cleaning industry, and more importantly, in expandingyour own current and future options in critical cleaning,surface quality, and contamination control for your ownversion of critical “fish” fabrication.

CRITICAL CLEANING QUESTION
For critical cleaning, including specialized activities such as deblocking and photoresist removal, proportionally, what cleaning agents are used and for what applications? (Solvents, aqueous, specialized blends, “non-chemical” cleaning.)