Detergent Residue Interaction with Ketones and Solvents?

Q: We currently use Alconox to clean glassware at our facility. Do you have any studies showing potential Alconox detergent residue interaction with organic ketones and/or other organic solvents?

A: The short answer is that Alconox® Powdered Precision Cleaner, like all Alconox Inc. detergent products, are designed to be completely free-rinsing.  Therefore leaving no residues to speak of.  However, incomplete rinsing can of course happen. So this verification is important.  

There are no known detergent residue interactions with organic ketones and Alconox under standard cleaning conditions. 

There are many organic and inorganic sodium salts in Alconox.  In solution, the sodium ions would in theory very slightly tend to form an equilibrium concentration of sodium salt with any proton donating alcohol groups in a solvent. If there are esters, with sufficient time and temperature, the alkali ingredients in Alconox will undergo base hydrolysis of the ester solvents.  Any solvent that is labile to base hydrolysis could interact with Alconox in a similar way.  Those are the common interactions between Alconox and solvents.    In general Alconox ingredients are not known to interact with most chlorinated solvents and alkane solvents.  If you have other specific solvent types of interest, we can certainly comment on them. 

The emulsifiers in Alconox will tend to emulsify most organic solvents, more strongly with non-polar solvents than polar solvents.

On balance, our other detergents will similarly have no known interactions, however, we are happy to discuss specific applications any time!

Of course the best answer for detergent residue interaction is to indeed perform thorough rinsing when possible as we discuss in Guidelines for Triple Rinsing.

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.

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Contact us any time: cleaning@alconox.com