Kolene Corp. celebrates 80th anniversary

Kolene Corp. marks 80 years in business in 2019. The company was founded in Detroit by John H. Shoemaker in 1939, offering commercial and industrial metal cleaning.

Most of the firm’s processes are based on proprietary molten salt technologies. It provides custom-engineered molten salt furnaces to melt the process chemicals and also patented chemical formulations to provide the cleaning medium. Unlike molten salts used for metal heat treating, molten salt cleaning systems employ chemically active ingredients that react with paints, powder coatings, metal oxides and other undesired contaminants.

The company’s most common process applications include casting cleaning; alloy descaling; paint and powder coating stripping; and removal of grease, carbon, and paint from used engines before a rebuild.