You may already be using baking soda as a leavening agent and even for cleaning different things throughout your household. The benefits and utility of baking soda is immense. It is popular as it is extremely environmentally safe as a cleaning agent. Now there are several commercial uses of soda; you will find many companies who use water soda blasting for safely removing grime, paint and graffiti gently from different surfaces.
Basically, soda blasting process includes usage of sodium bicarbonate or baking soda to apply against the surface to be cleaned using compressed air. It can be easily used for cleaning cars, food processing equipment, boat hulls as well as to clean structural steel. Little is known about who actually invented the process. However, it was a company in Houston, Texas who saw good opportunity in using this method for handling pick-up trucks with flawed paint jobs.
The advantage in using this system is that it does not damage the metal body panels as well as glass windows and lights. After soda blasting these trucks were ready for their new paint jobs. The most famous and early uses of soda blasting was to restore the Statue of Liberty in 1980s. The New York state engineers wanted a good process that could help protect the Statue’s surface but clean it well. Moreover it also sorted out their concern for environment and disposal of waste.
Water soda blast is a very simple process which involves using food grade baking soda as cleaning material. The soda dissolves in water but is a powerful cleaning and stripping agent when applied under pressure. The soda blasting machine propels soda based media via water or even compressed air to get surface cleaned. Soda is gentle in nature. The process and the material ensure removal of matter without causing any harm to the substrate. It can even be used to clean surfaces, remove rust or coatings of any nature without harming the surface beneath the material that you are removing.
Baking soda that is used is larger in size than you normally use in the kitchen. However, it has equal purity as approved by FDA. Usually the tools involved include a ‘sodablaster’ which is a self contained system. It includes a blast nozzle, blast hose, blast generator, high pressure compressed air and moisture decontamination system. These things are easily portable equipment and can reach hard to access places. Moreover, equipment need not be dismantled before cleaning. It saves lot of down time and labor. With pressurized air, the technique even does not require as much water and thus contributes to environment.
Soda blasting can effortlessly remove paint from brickwork as well as concrete. It is also helpful to prepare boat hulls for painting. It is useful for removal of internal and external, fire and smoke damage without water or chemicals. It removes graffiti in a short period as compared to other methods currently used. It is very safe for in-depth cleaning that is required in the food industry.
As baking soda is 100 percent biodegradable, water soda blast systems are easy as well as gentle to the environment.