Food & Beverage

Q. Will Liquinox kill bacteria, yeast and molds in a nutritional food and beverage manufacturing facility? Has it been approved or verified for this purpose?

A. Alconox Inc. detergents assist in the removal of pathogenic residues, but they do not kill them, and none of the detergents from Alconox Inc. have sporicidal properties. We do speak, in our literature about how….

Q: Since foaming is so critical to COP methods, should operators be agitating the solution(s) to produce foam before and during manual cleanings?

A: Mechanical energy, agitation, and plain old elbow grease, are vital weapons in cleaning and Clean-Out-Of-Place applications. So we would recommend that wherever possible, mechanical energy be applied to remove unwanted residues from the surface we are trying to clean. This will

Q. I’ve been told that we should no longer use isopropyl alcohol for cleaning our pharmaceutical equipment. What should we use instead?

A. In pharmaceutical cleaning applications, isopropyl alcohol (IPA) is less than ideal. Alcohol will clean residues which are soluble in alcohol, but that is a limited range.  Using critical cleaning, aqueous detergents are a far more robust and will allow for more effective cleaning processes.

Q.  What is the difference between Citranox and Citrajet?

A. Both Citranox® Liquid Acid Cleaner and Detergent and Citrajet® Low-Foam Liquid Acid Cleaner/Rinse are acid cleaners that are excellent at removing inorganics, metallic complexes, trace metals and oxides, scale, salts, soil, grit and oils off glass, metal, stainless steel, porcelain, ceramic, plastic rubber and fiberglass. Both Citranox and Citrajet detergents can be used on soft metals such as copper, bronze, aluminum, zinc, magnesium, and others, if rinsed promptly.

In order to “kill off” any microbial residue, a cleaning and removal of inanimate and organic matter is a must.  This would follow with the disinfecting, “kill” step if you will, with an EPA registered disinfectant. To prepare for removal of biofilms on stainless steel via a registered disinfectant, use a two-step process of Solujet alkaline cleaner followed by Citrajet acidic cleaner. Or consider our highly effective enzymatic detergent for use in manual applications including scrubbing, soaking, sonciation or low agitation cleaning in place.