Supercritical fluid cleaning of banknotes and secure documents utilizing ozone
AssigneeSpectra Systems Corporation
InventorNabil Lawandy
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and associated apparatus for cleaning a secure instrument including a substrate, visual data and a security feature, including exposing the secure instrument to ozone sufficient to clean the substrate and not compromise the security feature and the visual data, where to clean the substrate includes to remove one or more substances from the substrate into the ozone or to chemically alter the one or more substances in or on the substrate such that exposing the secure instrument to a supercritical fluid removes the one or more substances.
Claims22
A method for cleaning a secure instrument including a substrate, visual data and a security feature, comprising:
- exposing the secure instrument to ozone sufficient to clean the substrate and not compromise the security feature and the visual data;
- wherein to clean the substrate includes to remove one or more substances from the substrate into the ozone or to chemically alter the one or more substances in or on the substrate such that exposing the secure instrument to a supercritical fluid removes the one or more substances.
An apparatus for cleaning one or more secure instruments, each secure instrument including a substrate, visual data and a security feature, comprising:
- a chamber containing ozone sufficient to clean the substrate and not compromise the security feature and the visual data of the one or more secure instruments;
- and
- a structure for holding the one or more secure instruments in the chamber so that the ozone circulates through and around the one or more secure instruments to remove one or more substances from the substrate into the ozone or to chemically alter the one or more substances in or on the substrate such that exposing the secure instruments to a supercritical fluid removes the one or more substances.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.