Methods and systems are provided for treating oxide scale on the surface of a metal object. In one embodiment, a system temperature control apparatus controls the temperature of metal object's surface to an application temperature below the Leidenfrost temperature point of an alkali metal hydroxide aqueous conditioning solution. An application apparatus wets the metal object's surface at the controlled temperature with a thin layer of the solution that engages the oxide scale, and a heating apparatus heats the wetted surface to a final conditioning temperature above a melting point of the alkali metal hydroxide by an additional value selected to effect conditioning of the oxide scale at a reasonable but not excessive rate by the melting alkali metal hydroxide reacting with the oxide scale. The system terminates additional conditioning to prevent creation of additional oxide scale beyond the conditioned depth.

A method for continuously cleaning a moving strip in a cleaning installation including a tank containing an aqueous solution, at least a roll immerged in the aqueous solution for guiding the strip into the tank, at least an ultrasound emitter a feed for feeding an aqueous solution inside the tank, a tank emptier for emptying the tank, an aqueous solution estimator for estimating the aqueous solution level in the tank, a distance calculator for calculating, for each ultrasound emitter, its distance to the aqueous solution level and a power controller for controlling the power of the at least one ultrasound emitter including the following steps, performed continuously: estimating the aqueous solution level in the tank, calculating for each ultrasound emitter its distance to the aqueous solution level, comparing for each ultrasound emitter its distance to the aqueous solution level to a determined threshold.

A cleaning plant for hot-rolled metal strips provided with a surface oxide layer, the plant comprising unwinding means for unwinding at least one coil of rolled strip and pickling means for pickling said rolled strip; wherein there are provided measuring means for measuring the thickness of the surface oxide layer, arranged between said unwinding means and said pickling means; and wherein gaseous hydrogen detection means are provided to detect the presence of gaseous hydrogen in fumes produced by said pickling means. A corresponding cleaning method is also claimed.

An acid solution preparation device is an acid solution preparation device for preparing an acid solution used for pickling of a steel plate, the device including a sealed tank for storing the acid solution, a gas supply part for supplying an oxygen-containing gas from outside of the sealed tank to the sealed tank, and a purge part for discharging a gas in the sealed tank to the outside.

A cushion tank device includes: a cushion tank configured to store pickling solution and sludge discharged from a pickling tank; a discharge pipe provided on a bottom of the cushion tank and configured to discharge the sludge to an outside of the cushion tank; and an opening/closing member configured to open and close the discharge pipe. The cushion tank device configure to guide the sludge to the discharge pipe, the inclined surface including an inclined surface part on a lower part of the cushion tank that is inclined to horizon at an angle greater than an angle of repose of the sludge with respect to an inner wall surface of the cushion tank.

A method and a device for treating and monitoring objects incorporating a metal material. The objects are treated with a treatment fluid in one or more treatment zone(s) and the treatment fluid is then removed from and/or dried on the objects. To provide constant quality monitoring, at least one portion of at least one object respectively is optically detected and calorimetrically evaluated. In this manner, discoloration of metal materials caused by the treatment can be promptly detected.

The present invention relates to a method for the cleaning and/or anti-corrosion pretreatment of a plurality of components in series, in which the components of the series are at least partially composed of zinc-coated (ZM) steel. After a cleaning stage and before further cleaning and/or anti-corrosion pretreatment, the components pass through a treatment stage for improving the wettability of the zinc-coated (ZM) steel surfaces in which at least the surfaces of the zinc-coated (ZM) steel of the components are brought into contact with an aqueous medium which contains at least one builder which is a salt of a Lewis acid-base pair in which the Lewis acid is selected from Li.sup.+, Na.sup.+, K.sup.+, Ca.sup.2+, Mg.sup.2+ or Al.sup.3+, and the Lewis base is selected from anions of a polyprotic Brnsted acid.

A cleaning apparatus (100) for an ocean bottom cable (19) including a plurality of node casings (5), each containing at least one sensor capsule (9). During retrieval, an initial flushing device flushes the assembled cable with seawater before the capsules (9) are separated from the casings (5) in a loading/unloading apparatus (300). A washing tunnel (110) is configured to flush the sensor capsule (9) with water supplied from a freshwater tank (115) through a waterfeed pipe (117). Preferably, the cleaning apparatus also comprises a secondary flushing device for flushing the components with seawater after separation, and a drying tunnel (120). Separate conveyors convey the sensor capsules (9) and the node casings (5) to their respective destinations, such that each component may be flushed in seawater and/or freshwater and/or dried as required. The cleaning apparatus is optimized to use a minimum of freshwater and energy.

A manufacturing method of a support for a planographic printing plate including at least an alkaline etching step of dissolving an aluminum surface layer of an aluminum web with an alkaline solution during a surface roughening treatment on a surface of the aluminum web continuously traveling, the manufacturing method comprising: a circulating step of cyclically using the alkaline solution between a treatment tank for the etching and an alkaline solution reservoir during adjusting composition concentration of the alkaline solution; and a filtering step of filtering the alkaline solution cyclically used so as to remove solid matter in the alkaline solution.

Pickling a plurality of steel strips (2) having initial material properties (ME) on a pickling line: A computer (5) defines a number of sequences (Gi), which each contain the number of strips (2) to be pickled. For each of the defined sequences (Gi), the computer (5) determines an optimized mode of operation of the pickling line and, on the basis of the mode of operation, at least one measure (M), by means of a model (9) of the pickling line based on mathematical physical equations and by using the initial material properties (ME) of the strips. As long as a termination criterion (K) is not met, the computer (5) varies the defined sequences (Gi) and determines respective optimized modes of operation of the pickling line and associated measures (M) anew. As soon as the termination criterion (K) is met, the computer (5) either selects one of the last defined sequences (Gi) and initiates the control of the pickling line in accordance with the selected sequence (Gi) or offers to an operator (13) a plurality of the last defined sequences (Gi) together with the respective measures (M) thereof, receives a selection command (SEL) for selecting one of the offered sequences (Gi) from the operator (13), and initiates the control of the pickling line in accordance with the sequence (Gi) selected from the operator (13).