Gallego-Juarez Juan A, Riera Enrique, Acosta Victor, Rodríguez Germán, Blanco Alfonso
Power Ultrasonics Group, Instituto de Acústica, CSIC, Serrano 144, Madrid, Spain.
Ultrason Sonochem. 2010 Jan;17(1):234-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2009.06.005. Epub 2009 Jun 9.
The use of ultrasonic energy for washing of textiles has been tried several times without achieving practical development. In fact, the softness of the fibres makes the cavitation to produce small erosion effect and the reticulate structure of the fabric favours the formation of air bubble layers which obstruct wave penetration. In addition, a high proportion of water with respect to the wash load and a certain water degassing is required to assure efficiency and homogeneity in the wash performance. Such requirements have hindered the commercial development of the ultrasonic washing machines for domestic purposes. For specific industrial applications, a great part of these limitations may be overcome. This article deals with a new process in which the fabric is exposed to the ultrasonic field in a flat format. Such process has been implemented at laboratory and at semi-industrial stage by using specially designed power ultrasonic transducers with rectangular plate radiators. The cleaning effect is produced by the intense cavitation field generated by the plate radiator within a thin layer of liquid where the fabric is introduced. The homogeneity of such effect is achieved by the successive exposure of all the fabric areas to the intense acoustic field. In this paper the structure and performance of the developed system are shown.
利用超声能量清洗纺织品已尝试过多次，但均未实现实际应用的发展。事实上，纤维的柔软性使得空化作用产生的侵蚀效果较小，而织物的网状结构有利于形成阻碍波穿透的气泡层。此外，相对于洗涤负荷需要高比例的水以及一定程度的水脱气，以确保洗涤性能的效率和均匀性。这些要求阻碍了家用超声洗衣机的商业发展。对于特定的工业应用，这些限制中的很大一部分可以被克服。本文介绍了一种新的工艺，即让织物以扁平形式暴露在超声场中。通过使用带有矩形板散热器的专门设计的功率超声换能器，该工艺已在实验室和半工业阶段得以实施。清洗效果是由板散热器在引入织物的薄层液体中产生的强烈空化场造成的。通过使织物的所有区域相继暴露在强声场中，可实现这种效果的均匀性。本文展示了所开发系统的结构和性能。
