On March 19, 2026, the 20th meeting of Technical Committee 14 „Component Cleaning“ of the Working Group on Heat Treatment + Materials Technology e.V. took place at the Witten-Herbede site. As host, VTN Witten GmbH welcomed numerous colleagues from industry and research to an intensive professional exchange on current issues in component cleaning.

The event focused on a key insight: Clean surfaces are the basic prerequisite for successful heat treatment – be it nitriding, vacuum hardening or protective gas hardening. Stable and reproducible results can only be achieved through process-reliable and adapted cleaning.

The contents of the meeting reflected the range of current topics and challenges. For example, the mechanisms of action of cavitation and their targeted use to improve cleaning performance were intensively discussed. But there was also a lively exchange on topics such as the cleaning of PM components before case hardening, the impact of the mobility transition or the challenge of cleaning within the framework of LPC technology (Low Pressure Carburizing).

In addition to the technical contributions, the event offered a valuable platform for the intensive exchange of experiences. The open discussion within the technical committee once again showed how important cross-industry dialogue is for the further development of processes and technologies.

We would like to thank all participants for the constructive exchange and are pleased that we were able to host this conference in our house.