The Fachverband industrielle Teilereinigung e. V. (FiT - Association for Industrial Parts Cleaning) presented the FiT2clean Award for the second time in 2023. The award recognizes outstanding achievements and solutions in industrial component cleaning. Among the three finalists who presented their solutions on the third day of this year’s parts2clean trade show, intelligent fluids GmbH took the top prize with its development of innovative, environmentally friendly phase fluids that can replace traditional solvents in numerous cleaning applications.
In an increasing number of industries, component cleaning is not only a manufacturing step that contributes decisively to product quality but also to resource efficiency and the implementation of new products—and thus to maintaining competitiveness. This requires innovative developments in industrial cleaning technology. “With the FiT2clean Award, established in 2022 and presented annually, the Professional Association for Industrial Parts Cleaning recognizes outstanding achievements and solutions and aims to drive innovation in industrial parts cleaning,” reports Dr. Michael Flämmich, chairman of the FiT board. In 2023, a total of twelve companies competed for the innovation award with new and further developments. “The consistently exciting and forward-looking developments made it no easy task for the expert jury — composed of individuals from academia, research, industry, and the media — to select the three finalists,” adds Michael Flämmich. They presented their solutions on the third day of this year's parts2clean (September 28).
The winners of the 2023 FiT2clean Award
The FiT2clean Award, which comes with a prize of 10,000 euros and a one-year free membership in the association, was won by intelligent fluids GmbH for its concept of phase fluids designed to replace traditional solvents in a wide range of industrial cleaning applications. The fluids consist of the main components water, oil, surfactants, and activators. Instead of chemically dissolving contaminants, they remove them through physical lift-off effects. These new cleaning media are not only highly effective but also enable significant savings in operating costs.
Second place went to Sphera Technology GmbH for an innovative solution for controlling technical cleanliness at the micro- and nano-scale. The innovation is based on the combination of a standardized test specimen with smooth surfaces, integrated steps, cooling fins, through-holes and blind holes, as well as threads, with high-precision test particles in strictly defined sizes (e.g., 0.5 μm, 1 μm, 5 μm, 10 μm) and corresponding coding using UV-reactive inks. These particles are applied to the test specimen using a specially developed process. In the next step, the test specimen undergoes the relevant cleaning procedures, handling, storage, etc. Subsequently, the surface geometry is mapped, and the adjacent production surfaces are evaluated. For the first time, this makes it possible to quantitatively assess the cleaning process, with an emphasis on fast, simple, and cost-effective analytical methods.
Third place went to Fronius International GmbH for the development of a hot-active plasma system that is suitable, among other things, for the partial cleaning of the weld surfaces of grounding bolts. In this process, the arc plasma is shaped into a flame by a shielding gas flow, with the flame reaching temperatures of up to 1,000 °C at its core. The resulting thermal and chemical processes ensure that material surfaces are partially and precisely cleaned of organic residues and film-like contaminants. At the same time, the surface is activated. Since the arc is generated between the plasma nozzle and the tungsten electrode of the torch, a ground connection to the workpiece is not required. Accordingly, non-metallic materials can also be cleaned with hot-active plasma.
“With these and all the innovations submitted, providers of industrial cleaning technology have tapped into significant potential for optimizing solutions to current challenges in component cleaning,” notes Michael Flämmich. “This has us very curious about the submissions for the FiT2clan Award 2024.” The association’s innovation award will also be presented next year as part of parts2clean, which will take place September 24–26, 2024, at the Stuttgart Exhibition Center.