Detergents

Q. We have glassware that contains adhesive and API dissolved in organic solvents. If we do not do additional organic rinses prior to the aqueous rinses we have issues. Is there any way we can avoid the organic rinses?
A. To avoid organic rinses, you can soak in a high emulsifying cleaner such as a 1% Alconox solution (1.25 oz/gal or 10 g/L) prior to aqueous rinsing. Ideally soak in a warm or hot solution for fastest and most reliable results. The emulsifiers in Alconox will emulsify the solvents and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). Be sure to rinse at the same temperature you are soaking at so you do not break the emulsion and redeposit the API or solvents. If you soak hot . . .

My question is related to a minimum detergent concentration.  We manually wash labware of all sizes in 0.3% Liquinox solution. We also pre-wash or pre-rinse the labware and control our parts load.  We rarely have failures. We want to change our protocol to extend the wash water use for one day instead of based on a numerical parts load.  Do you think a 0.3% Liquinox concentration is sufficient detergent capacity to go an entire day?

Is Alconox and/or Liquinox an effective detergent for rinsing and removing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from non-porous surfaces (such as excavation equipment)? We have a great deal of experience with remediating PCBs with both powdered and liquid concentrate detergent options.

Q. What Alconox product is ideal for manual removal of polishing compound from aluminum?
A. For manual cleaning of aluminum use a warm 2% Citranox solution to remove the polishing compound. Citranox will not harm the mirror finish on the aluminum. Rinse thoroughly after washing.

I work in a lab here in London, and we are washing lab glassware (molecular biology/bacteria) with a standard home dishwasher. We do not have access to distilled water for rinsing, and our water is very hard. Will Citrajet be okay under those conditions? Also, do you have a distributor for Citrajet in the UK?