Improved Cleanability

Electropolishing for Better Clean-ability – Since the Electropolished surface is essentially free of sharp “scratch” marks found on Mechanically Polished surfaces, the Electropolished surface is much easier to clean and thus, results in reduced bacterial contamination as concluded in a study by J. W. Arnold et al of the USDA-ARS Russell Research Center. A copy of this article will be posted to "White Paper" under the "Resources" tab on main header above.

Two different surfaces were studied, a 2B (<10 µin Ra) mill finish and an electropolished surface, using one "heat" of material for the study. The surface morphology was measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM) which provided a comparison in the Z dimension as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 2 compares the bacterial attachment between the 2B mill finish and the EP finish metal specimens processed by two different manufacturers. Although there is an appreciable difference in attachment between the two manufacturers, in both cases the EP surface has a significant lower level of bacterial attachment. It was also concluded that the AFM is very useful in performing studies involving surface roughness compared to contact instruments.