Cleaning and liquid contact with solids – Apparatus – For work having hollows or passages
Patent
1997-12-08
2000-10-03
Stinson, Frankie L.
Cleaning and liquid contact with solids
Apparatus
For work having hollows or passages
134181, 134198, B08B 908
Patent
active
061258644
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for cleaning the interior of a container.
BACKGROUND ART
Chemicals, used in electronic industries such as semiconductor manufacture, include those of liquid state such as sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide. The demand for low concentration of impurity particles contained in these chemicals as a quality thereof is becoming stronger in these years due to the trend of micropattern and higher density of integrated circuits. A conventional method for satisfying this demand is to remove the impurity particles from the chemicals by filtering the chemicals minutely. However, even if the chemicals for electronic industries are filtered minutely, in some cases the concentration of the impurity particles in the chemicals at the place of use increases after they are infused into containers and transported to the place of use, and it is regarded as caused by the particles existing in the interior of containers.
The interior of the container is, of course, cleaned before infusing the chemicals into the same. Water-jet method using a rotary nozzle head is employed conventionally for cleaning the interior of the container. The rotary nozzle head with numerous cleaning liquid injection holes is rotatably attached to an end of a comparatively rigid pipe and rotated by the pressure of the cleaning liquid, typically ultra-pure water, introduced from the other end of the pipe. Therefore, an efficient cleaning is carried out since the injected ultra-water strikes against the entire inner surface of the container as moving a rotary nozzle head inserted into the container reciprocally between the opening portion and the bottom portion of the container while the ultra-pure water is injected from the injection holes of the rotary nozzle head. However, there is a fact that a very small amount of the particles still remain in the container even if the cleaning with ultra-pure water using the rotary nozzle head is carried out for a long time.
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a cleaning apparatus and method enable to make the entire interior of a container extremely clean with a comparatively small amount of cleaning liquid.
The present inventors examined the fact described above and found that, in the conventional method, since a rotary portion of the nozzle head is exposed to the passage of cleaning liquid, the cleaning liquid is contaminated by the small particles generated from the friction of said rotary portion, thus the container is contaminated. The present invention has been made based on these findings to provide a method of cleaning an interior of a container using a cleaning nozzle which comprises an elongated rigid pipe and a nozzle head with numerous injection holes and securely fixed to one end of the pipe. This cleaning method includes cleaning the interior of the container with a cleaning liquid injected from the injection holes of the nozzle head, comprising the steps of inserting the cleaning nozzle into the container from an opening of the container thereby locating the nozzle head inside the container, supplying the cleaning liquid from the other end of the pipe and injecting the liquid as a jet flow from the injection holes of the nozzle head, and moving the cleaning nozzle linearly and reciprocally along the longitudinal axis thereof and rotating the cleaning nozzle in clockwise and counterclockwise directions alternatively about the longitudinal axis.
Further, in another aspect, the present invention provides an apparatus for cleaning the interior of a container comprising a container base for supporting the container; a cleaning nozzle composed of an elongated rigid pipe and a nozzle head with numerous injection holes and fixed to an end of the pipe; a moving means for moving the cleaning nozzle linearly and reciprocally along the longitudinal axis thereof; and a rotating means for rotating the cleaning nozzle in clockwise and counterclockwise directions alternatively about the long
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Iino Yoshio
Morikawa Masao
Stinson Frankie L.
Sumitomo Chemical Company Limited
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