Ionic contamination reduction with dry ice cleaning

Abstract Compared with routine methods, dry ice cleaning is an innovative, inexpensive and green technology, which efficiently cleans printed circuit boards (PCBs) and decreases levels of ionic contamination. Due to its outstanding performance, dry ice cleaning is suitable for removing flux residues. In this study, boards that have been artificially contaminated by flux were blasted by dry ice with different parameters. The influence of dry ice cleaning on different surface finishes was comprehensively investigated. It was shown that the efficiency of dry ice cleaning is comparable with other methods and is quantifiable. Furthermore, dry ice cleaning can effectively remove pollution on PCB surfaces, yielding a noticeable and ideal cleaning effect without decreasing the solderability of different surface finishes.