How To: Clean Oral Rinse Residues
Q: We need to do a better job of cleaning our manufacturing equipment for oral rinse. We are cleaning via CIP. Can you assist?
A: Oral rinses are designed to leave lingering scents. These aromatic residues like eucalyptus oil, peppermint oil, and other ingredients found in an oral rinses can therefore be tough to clean off manufacturing equipment between batches
Vitamin E Cleaning
Q: You recently recommended hot water for cleaning cosmetics grade silicone that we were having a big problem with. That seemed to be the missing peace. We have the same struggles with Vitamin E Acetate. Should we use hot there?
A: Vitamin E acetate, or alpha-Tocopherol acetate, can definitely be a cleaning challenge. And indeed heat would be my initial recommendation.
Specific Formulations for Cold Water Cleaning?
Q: I’m looking for detergents similar to Liquinox and Citranox, that are specially formulated for cold water cleaning conditions. Can you recommend analogs to the two?
A: For most residues, the detergency of an aqueous detergent is enhanced and hastened by heat.
How to: Clean Carbomer
Q: We are having difficultly cleaning carbomer gel residue from our equipment. What do you recommend?
A: Carbomer or polyacrylic acid is a thickening agent, used to stabilize and provide the base for many ointments, cremes and lotions. As one might guess, it is a difficult residue. In the presence of water it can thicken and become a gelatinous, sticky gel. A goo.
Cleaning a Collagen Coating
Q: We are currently looking to remove a collagen coating from PET fabric and was wondering what we should use. We have Alconox powder, will that work?
A: To clean polyethylene terephthalate (PET) we generally want to stay away from alkaline and high alkaline detergents. Mildly alkaline is expected to be ok (< 10 pH). As with all compatibility matters....