High powered Lasers are being closely looked at for cleaning bridges and other infrastructure. The costs of containment and disposal of blasting methods is extremely high and in turn creates a lot of waste. There is a huge environmental benefit from the risk of contamination of air and waterways. Lasers cleaning systems coupled with adequate aspiration at the source leaves no secondary waste to pick up. The ablation process will vaporize paints and coatings to an ultrafine particulate that is easily aspirated with good fume extraction.
Laser cleaning systems have their environmental constraints to work properly. Elevated temperatures or humidity levels can trigger the system to shut down to prevent any damages. This hurdle can be overcome and NIR is currently working on a solution. Our goal is to enable these systems to be used from early spring to late fall. Please contact us for details.