Why CO₂ Coolant?

CO₂ coolant technology is a cost and performance effective alternative for a variety of environmentally undesirable and industrial agents.

CO₂ has been used for decades to cool and lubricate during machining processes, but has used excessive amounts of CO₂ so that it was not economical. The ChilAire™ System utilizes a proprietary mechanism technology that allows for the same cooling capacity, but using significantly less CO₂.  With the ChilAire™ System, CO₂ machining not only becomes affordable, but considerably more efficient.

The application of the ChilAire™ Machine Coolant Systems using recycled CO₂  has a positive and dramatic impact on lowering costs for machining through faster production speeds, longer lasting tools, energy reduction, and eliminating environmental issues related to waste disposal of customary machine coolants.

The most pressing concerns are relative to machining high temperature alloys such as Inconel, titanium, stainless steel, composites, and engineered plastics.

A recent study by a German car manufacturer revealed that a significant amount of total production cost was directly related to coolant.

Use of the ChilAire™ CO₂ Coolant System allows for elimination of coolant issues such as sticky oil, wet chips, fogged up machine compartments, coolant breakdowns, pump repairs, undesirable cutting interruptions, premature tool failure, contamination, employee inhalation, other health risks, and disposal.

Additional Benefits of ChilAire™ CO₂ Coolant System include (but not limited to):

• Faster Speeds/Productivity:  When the machine tool is cooled and held at a constant ambient temperature, you may increase spindle RPM and feed rates with no loss of tolerance.  Productivity will increase.  

• Longer Tool Life:  By holding the cutting tool at ambient temperatures, the tool maintains its sharpness longer, dramatically improving tool life and reducing the number of tool changes.

• Faster Drilling, Better Surface Finish: Heat and friction have a detrimental effect on surface finish, even on sharp tools. By controlling the heat in the tool and in the work piece, a cleaner cut is produced. Relatively hard materials experience micro tears under high heat machining. By controlling the heat at the tool-work piece interface, crisp clean cutting takes place, resulting in significantly improved machining surface finish. This is even true for the inside surfaces of a hole.  

• Chip Extraction:  The ChilAire™ System provides for great cooling, and under operating pressures of 400-PSI (pound-force per square inch) can provide necessary chip extraction. Re-cutting any chip causes machine tools to fail, but with the ChilAire™ System one can use faster spindle speeds and generate smaller chips while the 400-PSI working pressure moves the chip away from the cut zone.

• Environmental:  The CO₂  used with ChilAire™ System is recycled CO₂, the same as used carbonated soft drinks.  The ChilAire™ System is a user of CO₂, not a generator of CO₂.  

Moreover, utilizing recycled CO₂ delivers additional societal benefits such as:

• Safer Working Environments
• Cleaner Air
• Cleaner Products
• Longer Lasting Machines and Tools
• Higher Productive Yields
• Increased Productivity
• Improved Global Competitiveness

The ChilAire™ system utilizes recycled & existing CO₂, and does not create new CO₂!
CO₂ technology is safe for people and offers a very competitive cost-of-ownership when used in industrial processes such as machining.

The bottom line is that CO₂ technology is an important part of the global energy savings and pollution reduction solution.

Recycled CO₂ is obtained by capturing CO₂ that is produced as a by-product of natural and industrial processes. It is then captured as a gas, compressed to a liquid and supplied commercially in steel cylinders, mini-bulk tanks, and bulk storage tanks.

The recycled CO₂ efficiently replaces the function provided by industrial processing agents such as water, solvents, lubricants, and machining coolants. Replacing these agents with recycled CO₂ conserves natural and human resources such as water, oil, energy, time, capital and labor.

Producing, transporting, and consuming less processing agents eliminates the production of associated environmental pollution and waste by-products such as solid wastes (e.g., filters, sludges), liquid wastes (e.g., wastewater, spent oils and coolants), volatile organic compounds (VOC), and greenhouse gases (GHG).

Contact Cool Clean with any questions on how the use of CO₂ coolant can improve your bottom line.