Cool Clean Technologies, LLC
Innovative CO2 Cleaning for Medical Devices

As technology improves, medical devices are becoming more complex and smaller in size. The challenge to clean these parts while maintaining production has become increasingly difficult. Companies are finding out that to meet these cleaning requirements, they must be open to newer technologies and processes.

Modern-day medical devices that are exposed to high-risk environments require stringent cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization routines. Cleaning is often performed manually using friction and fluidics, or mechanically with ultrasonic cleaners, washer-disinfectors, and washer sterilizers. However, one method is becoming widely used due to its sheer versatility and effectiveness—liquid carbon dioxide (LCO2) cleaning. Approximately twelve times less viscous than water, LCO2 can penetrate smaller areas and carry away debris better than traditional multi-bath water-based systems.



CO2 cleaning not only minimizes waste and delivers higher reliability in terms of output quality and finish of the components, but additional environmental benefits are observed from the process. “All of Cool Clean Technologies’ CO2 is procured from recycled sources, ensuring no additional contribution to emissions and global warming,” states Jon Wikstrom, the President & CEO of Cool Clean Technologies. “Furthermore, in our liquid CO2 systems up to 98% of the CO2 used in the cleaning/extraction process is recovered and reused for additional cycles without loss of performance.”

Cool Clean Technologies (CCT) raises the bar in medical device cleaning excellence. LCO2 can be combined with sterilizing agents to achieve effective disinfection and sterilization of the surfaces exposed, including various implants, such as titanium hip, spinal, and joint replacement articles. This makes LCO2 cleaning a waterless solution for medical device sterilization and disinfection.

Cool Clean offers a highly customer-centric approach to identify customer needs and demonstrate unique solutions. Whether it’s going onsite into the customer’s lab, onto their production line, or demonstrating their tools in their facility, CCT offers our customers focused CO2-based solutions.

Cool Clean recently worked with a large pharmaceutical industry company to incorporate their unique CO2 technology to help the company solve a health and safety issue for its workers.

The company specializes in silicone implants and was having difficulty removing the unreacted monomers from breast implant material. The current process involved flammable solvents, which could not be reused in an FDA-controlled process. Cool Clean Technologies was contacted by the company with the aim to adapt its CO2 technology for a cleanroom environment and apply it to the specific cleaning criteria. After identifying the type of contaminant and particulate, CCT met the clients’ specifications by using a closed-loop liquid CO2 cleaning system. An added benefit was a reduction of cycle time to one-fifth the original time, allowing the company to increase production of implant efficiency.

CCT continues to innovate their solutions and serve as the only company globally that deals with CO2 in all phases—solid CO2 spray systems, liquid CO2 immersion systems, and supercritical CO2 extraction systems.

Other medical cleaning applications using Cool Clean’s CO2 technology, include dry ice, or CO2 spray cleaning to decontaminate surfaces and clean molds, thus ensuring minimal downtime by cleaning the machines in situ. Further, Cool Clean’s state-of-the-art CO2 spray cleaning equipment ensures effective residue removal for difficult-to-remove particulate matter, thin films, welding soot, and other residues from small and precise medical devices.



Dry machining of medical plastics, such as PEEK, can be cooled with CO2 without affecting the integrity of the material, while also eliminating burrs. Post deburring can be accomplished by blasting a focused spray of CO2 particles to remove challenging burrs with ease.

CCT offers a powerful combo of customer-centric service and cutting-edge CO2-based solutions to meet a variety of medical applications. If your company is working in the implant market for joint replacement, surgery, silicone, and trauma, consider looking at CO2 based technology for new applications.