A cleaning
system that utilizes an organic cleaning
solvent and pressurized fluid
solvent is disclosed. The
system has no conventional evaporative hot
air drying cycle. Instead, the
system utilizes the
solubility of the
organic solvent in pressurized fluid
solvent as well as the physical properties of pressurized fluid solvent. After an
organic solvent cleaning cycle, the solvent is extracted from the textiles at high speed in a
rotating drum in the same way conventional solvents are extracted from textiles in conventional evaporative hot air
dry cleaning machines. Instead of proceeding to a conventional
drying cycle, the extracted textiles are then immersed in pressurized fluid solvent to extract the residual
organic solvent from the textiles. This is possible because the organic solvent is soluble in pressurized fluid solvent. After the textiles are immersed in pressurized fluid solvent, pressurized fluid solvent is pumped from the drum. Finally, the drum is de-pressurized to
atmospheric pressure to evaporate any remaining pressurized fluid solvent, yielding clean,
solvent free textiles. The organic solvent is preferably selected from terpenes, halohydrocarbons, certain
glycol ethers, polyols, ethers, esters of
glycol ethers, esters of fatty acids and other
long chain carboxylic acids, fatty alcohols and other long-chain alcohols, short-chain alcohols, polar aprotic solvents, siloxanes, hydrofluoroethers, dibasic esters, and aliphatic hydrocarbons solvents or similar solvents or mixtures of such solvents and the pressurized fluid solvent is preferably densified
carbon dioxide.