Clean solution for the Swiss Army Knife

Environmentally responsible solvent cleaning with trichloroethylene

The Swiss Army Knife’s secret of success has been uncompromising quality for more than 125 years. This also includes cleaning the numerous elements making up the world famous red Swiss Army Knives. VICTORINOX AG uses trichloroethylene with the best available technology (BAT) to do this and as a result facilitates using the solvent in a way that is environmentally responsible and process-safe.

At its location in Ibach VICTORINOX produces about 28,000 Swiss Army Knives in 100 versions daily. Besides that the legendary Swiss Army Knife is included by New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the State Museum for Applied Art in Munich in the collection “Good Design”, 32,000 other pocket tools and about 60,000 knives for household and work use are produced daily. The highest quality and environ- mental protection standards apply here or as company head Carl Elsener puts it, “Our recipe for success is very simple: we pay attention to every detail.”

High demands on component cleaning

This also applies to cleaning the knife blades and other functional elements made out of special high alloy stainless steel. The first cleaning step occurs after the punching. VICTORINOX launched the quality cleaning project together with Dow and SAFECHEM Europe back in 1993 to achieve reliable cleaning of the various punching oils. Various cleaning media were tested during a comprehensive evaluation phase. This revealed that efficient cleaning of the processing resi- dues from the many different components could only be achieved with the solvent trichloroethylene (TRI).

When an investment in a new cleaning system was due 15 years later, the biggest knife factory in Europe again conducted experiments with aqueous cleaners and other solvents. And again, TRI proved to be the medium that best met the high cleaning requirements.