Alnochromix Applications

Q: We recently read about Alnochromix cleaner.  What are the Alnochromix applications to target for the product?

A: You can read general information about the product here What Is Alnochromix, but knowing what it is, is of course different from where to use it.   So whether you are a dealer of ours, or a lab ensuring you have the best products on hand, the below discusses the Alnochromix applications of most utility.

As a summary, Alnochromix® Oxidizing acid additive is a specialty product that is used for cleaning where you do not want any risk of a surfactant residue and you need to remove organic residues to analytical levels of cleanliness.

Alnochromix is a very strong oxidizing agent that you add to concentrated 98% sulfuric acid and then use the mixture to soak glassware to clean it.  Alnochromix was designed to replace soaking glassware in chromic sulfuric acid, which contains hazardous chromium. Alnochromix is a far safer replacement. 

Before detergents existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, chromic sulfuric acid was a common way of critically cleaning analytical laboratory glassware.  Today most labs and related facilities perform critical cleaning of glassware with detergents like Alconox® Powdered Precision Cleaner and Liquinox® Critical Cleaning Liquid Detergent except for the following specialized applications:

• Some enzyme kinetics experiment procedures call for use of a surfactant free cleaner such as Alnochromix as surfactants can give false high kinetics results by aggregating enzymes in micelles.
• Procedures working with cell culture and tissue culture look to avoid risk of interference from surfactants therefore specifying Alnochromix cleaner.
• Working with flavor or fragrance profile testing procedures tend to avoid any surfactant interference that my interfere with the flavors or fragrances.
• Trace metal analysis and sensitive electronic cleaning may use specify Alnochromix cleaner to thoroughly remove acid soluble metals and insulating organic residues.
• Ultra high vacuum cleaning procedures may specify Alnochromix to remove organic outgassing from vacuum chambers.

We are happy any time to discuss whether Alnochromix cleaner or one of our other detergents is right for your application.

To request 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