Industry

A customer needed to clean an assembly of a printed circuit board which had been sweat soldered to an aluminum plate/heatsink/carrier. The company needed a cleaner that would not attack the Alodine coated aluminum backside or the gold pockets or solder reflowed surface of the circuit board.

Unfortunately, the current cleaner was slightly base ph 9+ and the water slightly alkaline as well coming in at a ph of 8.0. This, along with other factors, caused staining, darkening and spotty discoloration of the 6061 Alodine coated (chemical conversion coating) aluminum parts.

Q. We manufacture metal parts in house and overmold (LIM) with silicone. We often have adhesion problems between the silicone and metal. We believe the problem is with our current cleaning process. I would like you to recommend a new cleaner that we can test.
A. If having silicone and metal adhesion issues in medical device cleaning, use the hottest practical temperature you can to remove silicone residues. I recommend you clean with very hot 2% Alconox (20 g/L of 2.5 oz/gal) detergent.

Q. How long will the enzyme in a 1% solution of Tergazyme remain active?
A. A 1% Tergazyme solution is designed to give good reliable cleaning performance for 8 hours at 120 deg F. This is designed to correspond to an 8 hour work shift.

Q. How can I order samples from Alconox?
A. The Alconox.com website offers all the tools and information you need for your critical cleaning application.
To test an Alconox, Inc. detergent for free, please complete the questionnaire at Get Sample.

Q. What is the proper way to clean narrow neck flasks?
A. Narrow neck flasks are best cleaned in labware washers with special attachments that have a spray nozzle that goes up inside the flask. It is very hard to successfully clean narrow neck flasks in a simple home dishwasher or a lab washer that does not have special narrow neck flask racks.