When Mike Valenti walks into a finishing facility, he usually knows within a few minutes whether the plant has a cleaning problem—or an equipment problem.
Mike ValentiAfter more than a decade in metal finishing and additional experience in cleaning technologies from an earlier chapter of his career, the Director of Technology at Hubbard-Hall has seen a recurring pattern. Operators struggle with adhesion failures, water breaks, staining, contamination, or inconsistent coating performance. The first instinct is often to blame the chemistry.
Valenti has a different perspective.
“Probably 85% of the time it's not a cleaner that's the problem,” he says. “The equipment is the problem.”
That realization has made him one of the industry's most outspoken advocates for viewing cleaning as a complete system, not just a chemical process. In today's finishing environment—where manufacturers are processing more parts, handling increasingly complex geometries, transitioning from solvents to aqueous systems, and facing greater quality expectations—successful cleaning depends upon far more than the product in the tank.
According to Valenti, the future of finishing may depend on how well companies understand that distinction.
The Great Cleaning Misconception
For decades, chemistry companies have been called when parts fail cleanliness tests or coatings begin exhibiting quality problems. It's a natural reaction. Changing a cleaner is relatively inexpensive compared to replacing or upgrading equipment.
That's exactly why many facilities look there first.
“I get phone calls all the time from people who have cleaning problems,” Valenti says. “They say, ‘Well, if we just switch out the cleaner, it's going to fix the problem.’”
Often, it doesn't. The reality is that chemistry and equipment work together as a unified system. One cannot consistently perform without the other.
“Equipment is just as important as chemistry,” Valenti explains. “Chemistry can't solve every problem. It's synergistic. You've got to have the right equipment and the right chemistry to do not just cleaning, but anything in metal finishing.”
In some cases, companies have outgrown their equipment. Production volumes may have doubled or tripled over the years while the cleaning system stayed the same. In other situations, maintenance has been deferred for so long that equipment performance has degraded significantly.
Sometimes the challenge is even more fundamental.
Manufacturers may change materials—from steel to aluminum, for example—without evaluating whether their cleaning and rinsing systems can adequately accommodate the new substrate. What worked perfectly a decade ago may no longer meet today's production requirements.
“People are going to avoid a huge capital investment if they can,” Valenti says. “They'll try to get as much life out of that equipment as they can.”
While understandable, the strategy often creates larger problems downstream.
Choosing the Right Cleaning Method
One reason cleaning remains such a challenge is that no single technology fits every application.
Immersion cleaning, spray cleaning, and ultrasonic systems each offer distinct advantages depending on part design, throughput requirements, and soil characteristics. At its simplest, immersion cleaning involves placing parts in a cleaning solution and letting chemistry—often aided by agitation—remove contaminants.
“That's really good if you have a lot of time to clean the parts,” Valenti says.
Large barrel phosphate operations processing thousands of fasteners at a time are excellent examples of where immersion cleaning can be highly effective.
Spray cleaning addresses a different challenge. High-volume powder coating operations may need to process thousands of parts each day in a continuous flow system. In those cases, immersion cleaning becomes impractical.
“You're going to clean them, pretreat them, dry them, and then paint them in real time,” Valenti explains.
Ultrasonic technology adds another dimension by creating cavitation within the cleaning solution. Tiny bubbles implode against the parts' surfaces, generating localized cleaning forces that can be highly effective at removing particulates and contaminants trapped in hard-to-reach areas.
“As people move to aqueous cleaning from solvent cleaning, it becomes a bigger problem because water's surface tension is so high that it's hard to get into all those layers,” Valenti says.
“Sonics are good for removing things like particulates and solids that adhere to the surface of parts,” he says.
Modern cleaning systems increasingly combine these approaches. Many chamber-style washers incorporate immersion, spray, and ultrasonic technologies within a single process, allowing manufacturers to tailor cleaning action to increasingly demanding applications.
The key, Valenti notes, is selecting the right technology at the outset rather than forcing a mismatched system to do a job it wasn't designed for.
Why Part Geometry Changes Everything
Few factors influence cleaning effectiveness more than part geometry. Blind holes, recesses, internal passages, and complex shapes present challenges that have become even more pronounced as environmental regulations drive manufacturers away from solvent-based cleaning processes.
Historically, solvents offered distinct advantages for cleaning intricate components by reaching those little nooks and crannies. Aqueous systems introduce different physical properties. Water has much higher surface tension, making it harder to penetrate tight spaces and complex geometries.
“As people move to aqueous cleaning from solvent cleaning, it becomes a bigger problem because water's surface tension is so high that it's hard to get into all those layers,” Valenti says.
This transition is accelerating as companies seek to eliminate solvents. However, achieving equivalent cleaning performance often requires substantial equipment modifications, new process technologies, and re-engineered cleaning systems.
“If you see an oil sheen on a plating tank or an acid salt tank or something, you know there's a problem,” he says.
“There is equipment out there with newer technologies that are trying to innovate around that problem,” Valenti says. “But yes, complex geometries and aqueous cleaning have always been a problem.”
The implication is clear: successful solvent replacement involves far more than changing chemistry. It frequently requires rethinking the entire cleaning process.
Spotting Problems Before Testing Reveals Them
One advantage of Valenti's years in the industry is his ability to identify problem facilities long before laboratory testing confirms a cleanliness issue.
His evaluation often begins with simple observations.
“The first thing I'll ask is how often do you have to change this tank,” he says.
A cleaning bath that requires replacement every few days can indicate excessive soil loading and insufficient system capacity.
Rinse tanks often provide equally valuable clues.
“The thing that people skimp on for some reason the most, and they're the cheapest tanks, is rinses,” Valenti says.
Insufficient rinsing creates a surprisingly common problem. Parts may be cleaned successfully, only to carry residual chemistry and contamination into rinse stages where soils are redeposited onto component surfaces.
In an era where manufacturers aggressively pursue water conservation and wastewater reduction, Valenti often finds facilities operating with inadequate rinsing capacity.
His advice is simple and memorable: “However many rinse tanks you think you need, multiply it by three.”
Contamination appearing in downstream process tanks offers another warning sign.
“If you see an oil sheen on a plating tank or an acid salt tank or something, you know there's a problem,” he says.
Such contamination typically indicates that cleaning stages are failing to remove oils effectively before parts enter subsequent finishing operations.
When Equipment and Chemistry Must Work Together
One of the biggest misconceptions in industrial cleaning is that a cleaner can function independently of system design.
Valenti routinely encounters facilities seeking specialized chemistries without understanding the equipment requirements necessary to support them.
For example, some modern cleaners are designed to displace oils so oil-skimming equipment can continuously remove them from the bath.
The approach can dramatically extend bath life. However, the benefits disappear if the cleaning system lacks the necessary oil separation equipment.
“You go look at their equipment, and they have no oil weir; they have no way to skim the oil,” Valenti explains.
The reverse situation also occurs. Some operations seek emulsifying cleaners but lack the wastewater treatment capabilities needed to manage spent solutions properly.
As a result, chemical selection becomes inseparable from equipment configuration.
“The issue always is whether the system is designed to run that cleaner,” he says.
Unfortunately, many existing cleaning lines were designed years ago for different chemistries, different substrates, and different contamination profiles.
Spray systems particularly illustrate this relationship. Most spray cleaners are formulated to split or displace oils rather than emulsify them. Without functioning coalescers or separation systems, oils accumulate rapidly and compromise cleaning performance.
Valenti frequently visits facilities where installed oil separation equipment has never been connected or properly maintained simply because operators viewed it as an unnecessary complication.
The result is predictable: declining cleaning performance, reduced bath life, and higher operating costs.
The Aluminum Challenge
One area where equipment limitations are becoming increasingly visible is aluminum processing. Valenti says many finishing operations are receiving dirtier aluminum components than they did in previous years.
“I'm seeing it with aluminum more than anything else,” he says.
At the same time, pretreatment technologies have evolved. Newer zirconium-based pretreatment systems often impose different cleaning requirements than legacy conversion coating processes.
Unfortunately, many existing cleaning lines were designed years ago for different chemistries, different substrates, and different contamination profiles.
Valenti recently worked with a powder coating operation trying to achieve acceptable performance with a four-stage pretreatment system.
The problem wasn't chemistry; the process required additional cleaning capacity.
“They actually need a six-stage system,” he explains.
The challenge becomes particularly acute in high-speed finishing operations where cleaning stages may provide only 30 to 60 seconds of exposure time.
Multiple suppliers reached the same conclusion, yet the customer remained resistant because adding a cleaning stage would reduce productivity and require significant investment.
Valenti understood the frustration but remained direct.
“You're making bad parts now,” he told them.
The exchange highlights a reality increasingly confronting manufacturers: chemistry alone cannot compensate for inadequate process design.
The Importance of Spray Patterns and Pressure
Even cleaning systems with the right hardware can underperform if they aren't configured correctly. Nozzle placement, spray pressure, nozzle type, and solution delivery all influence cleaning effectiveness.
“The nozzles aren't set correctly, so they're pointing the wrong direction, and the pressure isn't right,” Valenti says.
Contrary to popular belief, higher pressure isn't always better. In some applications, flooding the surface with cleaning solution is more effective than aggressive impingement.
“Sometimes you need to flood the parts with solution,” he explains. “If you have too much impingement, it'll bounce the cleaner right off one surface, and you only clean half the part.”
“You still have a lot of places where people are literally weighing up cleaner in five-gallon buckets and saying, ‘Well, once a shift we dump a five-gallon bucket in there,’” he notes.
The challenge becomes particularly acute in high-speed finishing operations where cleaning stages may provide only 30 to 60 seconds of exposure time.
Under those conditions, every variable matters: heat, chemistry, pressure, spray angle, soil characteristics, solution volume, and residence time.
“All those mechanical factors are just as important as the chemistry,” Valenti says.
Maintenance: The Overlooked Performance Driver
Another recurring issue is insufficient preventive maintenance. Cleaning systems often run continuously for months or years with little attention beyond chemical additions.
Over time, nozzles clog, risers accumulate debris, pressures drift, and spray patterns deteriorate.
“People will run these systems and just run them to death and never shut down and do any preventive maintenance,” Valenti says.
Eventually, properly designed systems lose their ability to deliver cleaning solution effectively to part surfaces. The consequences appear as water breaks, poor adhesion, contamination carryover, and inconsistent process performance.
In many cases, simple maintenance activities can restore performance without changing chemistry or replacing equipment: clean nozzles, verify spray pressures, confirm nozzle alignment, inspect pumps, and evaluate rinse effectiveness. These basic practices often yield significant improvements.
Automation and Smart Monitoring
Like many areas of manufacturing, cleaning technology is benefiting from increased automation and process monitoring.
Modern systems can incorporate sensors, automated chemical feeding equipment, and continuous monitoring technologies that help maintain consistent operating conditions.
One of the most common problems Valenti encounters is concentration variability caused by manual chemical additions. Many facilities still rely on operators to add cleaner periodically based on experience or rough estimates.
“You still have a lot of places where people are literally weighing up cleaner in five-gallon buckets and saying, ‘Well, once a shift we dump a five-gallon bucket in there,’” he notes.
Investing slightly more today can prevent costly limitations tomorrow. Otherwise, companies inevitably reach the point where they call suppliers seeking chemistry capable of cleaning more parts in less time.
Automated chemical feed systems eliminate much of this variability while reducing operator involvement. Even relatively inexpensive technologies can significantly improve consistency and overall process control.
For manufacturers struggling with cleaning performance, monitoring systems often offer one of the most cost-effective improvement opportunities.
Planning for Tomorrow's Throughput
As manufacturers evaluate new cleaning systems, Valenti believes they frequently focus too heavily on immediate requirements.
That's a mistake. When asked what the most important question is when designing a new cleaning line, his answer has little to do with chemistry or equipment specifications. Instead, he focuses on growth.
“What's the future look like?” he asks.
Too many facilities size equipment for current requirements only to discover several years later that production has expanded beyond system capacity.
“Plan to be successful,” Valenti says. “Plan for growth.”
Too often, finishing operations overlook equipment condition, process design, rinse capacity, maintenance practices, and long-term planning while focusing exclusively on the cleaner in the tank.
Investing slightly more today can prevent costly limitations tomorrow. Otherwise, companies inevitably reach the point where they call suppliers seeking chemistry capable of cleaning more parts in less time.
At that stage, the answer is often one they don't want to hear.
“There's probably not one,” Valenti says. “It's a throughput problem.”
Cleaning Still Determines Everything
Despite advances in coatings, pretreatments, automation, and finishing technologies, one truth remains unchanged: coatings cannot perform reliably on a dirty surface.
That reality is why Valenti continues teaching customers to view cleaning as a complete process rather than a chemical purchase.
Too often, finishing operations overlook equipment condition, process design, rinse capacity, maintenance practices, and long-term planning while focusing exclusively on the cleaner in the tank.
The industry's most successful operations understand better.
“If the parts aren't clean,” Valenti says, “nothing else you do is going to matter.”
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