Micropowder blasting

Microabrasion using compressed air is a modification based on sandblasting, the micropowder blasting. This process enables all types of glass, ceramics and semiconductor materials, irrespective of their chemical composition and crystal structure, to be inexpensively processed down to the micrometer scale. The micropowder blasting is a masked procedure and works quasi-parallel on the whole substrate. A powder jet drives systematically over the substrate. Material is removed at the mask openings (see Figure 2.17). 

In some cases, used perfluorinated fluoropolymers (e.g., PTFE, PFA) are recycled by special cleaning processes and are ending up in the Repro-PTFE or micropowder-PTFE-market. Perfluorinated thermoplasts (e.g., PFA) are reused in applications where the quality requirements (e.g., lot traceability) are much lower. Overall, the lion s share of used fluoropolymers is, however, ending up in landfills, in incineration plants, or in blast furnaces. Communal waste incinerators can tolerate only very limited amounts of fluoropolymers due to the high corrosion due to hydrofluoric acid formed in the process. 

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