yet another blasting method!

[piggdekk]

Hello,
today at work I walked by our maintenance guy (actually girl) desk and she shwoed me something they're looking into to blasting equipment in lesser messy way (I work for a petrochemical company).
Basically instead of using sand, or whatever, this company has developped different types of sponges with an abrasive agent (auminium oxyde) in it.
Could this be useful for our cars too? being a sponge it shouldn't be too aggressive with the metal sheets, and since particle sizes are relatively large it shouldn't do a messy job with sand getting everywhere. The sponge itslef is very pricy, but they clame they can recover 90% of it.
This is their website:
Sponge-Jet Technology: The Heart of the Sponge-Jet System
What do you guys think?
luca

[sc_rufctr]

That does look like a god idea especially considering how messy conventional sand blasting is.

The recovery rate of 90% is brilliant.

[TimT]

We tried sponge jet blasting on a large commercial project a few years ago...the claims they makeare a bunch of marketing BS... not only do you have to reclaim the spent media, you also have to! collect and dispose of the carrier (sponge). We tried spongejet on a structure that had lead based paint that needed to be removed....sponge jet would have dramatically increased our disposal costs

[piggdekk]

Thanks Tim,
what do You mean with reclaim the spent media?
not considering the cost for disposing the media, from an operational stand point did it work better or not?
thanks
luca