What is Soda Blasting? What is soda blasting used for?

What is Soda Blasting?

If you have a need to clean, or even remove a tough coating from a substrate that is too delicate to resist the damage that would result from a traditional abrasive blasting process, soda blasting may be the answer.

Soda blasting is a method of removing surface contaminants and coatings by using sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Compressed air from specialized blasting machines propel particles against the surface to be cleaned.

As the sodium bicarbonate particles come in contact with the surface they burst and release an energy that removes the contaminant or coating. The sodium bicarbonate and blasting machine work in unison to perform this removal process in a nearly non-destructive manner that produces little to no damage to the substrate, depending on composition.

Soda Blasting Applications

The non-abrasive cleaning action of sodium bicarbonate makes it effective for several cleaning processes on a variety of materials. The chart below displays some of the practical uses for soda blast media.

Benefits of Soda Blasting

Sodium bicarbonate is a non-hazardous and environmentally safe blast media. It is a water soluble material that provides a one-step cleaning and stripping process that can remove contaminants and coatings efficiently without damaging most delicate substrates, and avoids a potentially labor intensive manual process.

In the abrasive media industry, “hardness” is measured by using the Mohs scale, which is a rough measure of the resistance of a smooth surface to scratching or abrasion.

The relative Mohs hardness of sodium bicarbonate is 2.5, making it one of the more softer abrasives.

Natrium Products soda blast media consists of granular sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) formulated for various soda blast applications. Each formulation consists of sodium bicarbonate particles, uniform in size, that exhibit the flow characteristics needed for productive soda blasting.