Replacing Hazardous Acids

Q: What can I use to replace hazardous acids below pH 1 cleaning?

A: Thanks for your question about replacing hazardous mineral acids below pH 1 acid cleaning. Depending on exactly what you are using your acid cleaning to do, we can likely help you.

We can offer Citranox® Liquid Acid Cleaner and Detergent or Citrajet® Low-Foam Liquid Acid Cleaner/Rinse acid cleaners (pH 2.5 at use dilutions) which would be safer to handle and easier to dispose of than hazardous acids that are below pH 1 solution. They are both liquid concentrate, acidic cleaners (high and low foaming respectively) designed to clean inorganic residues, salts, oxides and other acid labile contaminants.  If you are using the below pH 1 solution for general purpose cleaning, Alconox® Powdered Precision Cleaner or Liquinox® Critical Cleaning Liquid Detergent would be best, and offer far safer disposal.

For electronics cleaning, Detergent 8® Low-Foaming Ion-Free Detergent cleaner is the optimal choice. It contains no chelating agents, halides or conductive metal cations such as sodium.  It is an extremely effective detergent and rinses away completely. Other ion containing detergents may leave trace ions which could lead to a short circuiting in electronics applications.

Alconox, Liquinox, Citranox, Citrajet and Detergent 8 solutions can be disposed of as non-hazardous waste by Federal standards. Depending on your local requirements or sewage discharge permit, it is possible that a Detergent 8 solution would need to be treated to reduce the pH prior to discharge.

• A spent Detergent 8 solution is typically around pH 10-11, by Federal Standards this is below pH 12.5 so it can go to drain as long as no local standards apply.
• A spent solution of Alconox has a pH of 8-9.5 and is unlikely to present any discharge problem.
• Spent solutions of Citranox/Citrajet solutions are typically pH 3-4 and can go to drain by Federal Standards (must be above pH 2.0).

To request these, or any Alconox Inc. detergents for free, please complete the questionnaire at Get Sample.  For more information about any one of our Alconox, Inc. detergents, consult the technical bulletin for each product. Or click here to access each of our detergent’s  Safety Data Sheets.

Do you have a critical cleaning question for the experts at Alconox, Inc.?  Search TechNotes to see if it’s been answered before or Ask Alconox.

Contact us any time: cleaning@alconox.com