Iwatani is selling dry ice blaster at a good pace. The blaster sprays the particles of dry ice using the pressure of air and nitrogen in order to peel off and remove the contaminants like metals or resins which remain on the surface of the objects to clean.

In many cases a sand blast or water is used for such an industrial cleaning purpose, but recently people pay attention again to the dry ice blasting which removes worries about damages of cleaning objects and does not require any post processing like draining.

The domestic CO2 gas manufacturers are taking a system to import and sell the blaster from the Western manufacturers. Iwatani had long been dealing with US manufacturer’s products, but switched it into German Green Tech’s products from the latter half of 2016. Ever since, Iwatani has been expanding the business. As the standard model of GT-110 above all is air-driven needing no electricity, it is now the major item because of the easy-to-use advantage for outdoor use. Eiichiro Hattori manager of Chemical Gas Department of Industrial Gases Division said, “Green Tech’s product is so compact and can be maintained quickly with Green Tech Japan located in Mie Prefecture. It is popularly used for cleaning purposes for automotive parts, press molds and the production equipment of beverages, plastic and rubber products. It seems that users evaluate the labor-saving effects in the post treatment after cleaning.”

The consumption of dry ice varies depending on users, but he says that some large users consume so much as 10 tons per month.

From 2018 Iwatani also started to sell a snow-type machine which sprays fine particles of dry ice using liquefied CO2 as raw material. It has already been delivered to a major electronics part manufacturer requiring a softer cleaning power.
　
Manager Hattori overviews saying, “We now manufacture our products on an item consistency basis to meet users’ requirements like the specifications of nozzle, but in the future we intend to integrate our lineup to cope with a mass production so that the product prices may be lowered. In case of liquefied CO2, it is advantageous to enable an automatic continuous supply covering any consumption level from cylinders to cryogenic containers. Combining with robots, we can propose automation to users. We would like to tie up with our Machinery & Equipment Division to tackle to get orders for new needs.”

In addition, Iwatani intends to expand sales taking advantage of the Group power mainly including the consigned cleaning services based on the group company Kokusai Eisei dealing with insecticide and cleaning and also the sales activities through its overseas associates to the overseas bases of Japanese companies.