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.