Ask the Chemist

Need a Technical Question Answered?

Feel free to fill out the form below and one of our team members will contact you with more information.

Do you need help replacing:

Ineffective, duplicate, unnecessary, non-complying, or non-conforming industrial chemicals?

Ease of chemical sourcing might be part of your problem. What percentage of your staff works with chemicals containing ingredients they cannot pronounce or worse contain ingredients with ‘proprietary’ listed as the CAS #? To protect your critical assets (i.e. high value parts, equipment, fleet) and keep your workforce safe, you need to have someone help make sense of your unique chemical profile. This includes:

• Evaluating and documenting your chemicals
• How they are packaged (paper, plastic, wood, metal)
• How they are dispensed or applied (ex: parts washing systems, aerosols, pre-saturated wipes, etc.)
• How they are released (air, land, water) vs. collected
• How they comingle and react in your waste streams (waste water, drum disposal)
• How your combined chemical footprint determines your hazardous waste generator status [Conditionally Exempt Small Quantity Generator (CESQG), Small Quantity Generator (SQG), Large Quantity Generator (LQG)]

We want to serve as your industrial chemical coach. During current volatile economic times we regularly meet and speak with environmental, health and safety professionals and industrial hygienists reporting heavier workloads, shrinking staffs and progressively strict government regulations (ex: EPA, OSHA, OTC, SCAQMD, CARB.) Ecolink’s reputation for delivering relevant, timely, and visionary chemical formulations for what industry and governments around the world need to keep their organizations key assets maintained and operating safely is the cornerstone of our organization. We help you and your teams translate changing regulations affecting your industrial chemicals into actionable plans. Using your organization’s unique chemical footprint, we initiate an enterprise-wide dialogue about how best to prepare for the planned (and unplanned) chemical bans and phase-outs.

Industrial Chemicals Hit List

Industrial Chemical Manufacturer Hit List

By now, you have exhausted talks with your current chemical suppliers and waste haulers about how they can support you in meeting the next generation of chemical bans and phase-outs. If you are not happy with the quantity or quality of industrial chemicals currently in place and/or proposed as alternatives, please email or call us at 800 563-1305. Chemical utopia is not only available but it is also the responsible thing to do.

Ecolink operates in a culture that is not afraid of failure or taking risks. Industrial chemical challenges are seldom unique. We have amassed an extensive database of experimental and commercialized chemical solutions for you to leverage. We regularly sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA’s) or confidentiality agreements and maintain open communications, clarity, and transparency in disclosing our rationale behind each ingredient by percentage of composition. We contend the most powerful form of environmental protection is an educated citizen. Our unprecedented coalition of engineers, Lean/Six Sigma practitioners, chemists, scientists, and industrial hygienists represent government, business, academia, and non-government organizations (NGO).

Philosophy and Methodology

We always seek multi-use over single use chemical solutions and invest additional time up front to understand your applications and groups involved. Studying your soils and contaminants you need to remove (i.e. grease, oil) we align our chemical recommendations with your degree of need for non-volatile reduce [NVR] as measured in hundredths of an inch. We customize the design our chemistry with Lean principles and combine with hassle-free sourcing, use, handling, and disposal. Understanding the options and strengths of today’s industrial chemicals is crucial to sustaining your valuable yet aging equipment, machinery, fleets.

Do you want to be part of a network of leaders from across the country who are doing business differently and improve your odds for employee safety and long-term sustainment of your critical assets (i.e. equipment, fleet)? Are you trying to improve performance of industrial chemicals, comply with government regulations and/or manufacturer specifications, replace or reduce Safety KleenÒ, use less and saf(er) chemicals? Ecolink Inc. is creating an online community and resource center. Interested in joining our network? Please submit your contact information to info@ecolink.com or call 800 563-1305.

Testing Services

Through our nationwide network of alliance partners and third party testing centers, we offer a variety of services ranging from how to clean or care for bearings, to how to select VOC compliant cleaners, degreasers and solvents to testing our competitor product and providing a second opinion for your specific application. We recognize that ‘most’ [as much as 80%] industrial chemicals are not efficient, essential, or necessary. We can test at one of your sites, one of our labs or interact through videoconferencing.

How can innovation occur if you or your current suppliers keep doing the same thing over and over again? Studies show time and again that people whose ideas are challenged do more work on behalf of those ideas, from reading more widely on the topic to testing their perspectives more frequently in conversation. The difference between reacting vs. responding vs. initiating can equate to hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars, regulatory compliance, and long-term health and safety of your staff.  Our systematic, proactive method has earned us expert status on eliminating chemical waste and pollution: “one of the most commonly ignored operating expense categories.”

Often times there are clues contained within the chemical manufacturer’s Safety Data Sheet (SDS) that help determine its effectiveness. If you want a second set of eyes to review your 80/20 high usage industrial chemicals, our chemist will review the active ingredients by CAS #, approximate weight by percent, vapor pressure, flashpoint, HMIS information and health hazard data along with how the chemical is applied and compare to your local/state/federal regulations.

Break your Industrial Chemical Challenge into Bite-Size Pieces

Because regulatory changes have outpaced new chemical development and approval, material and process engineers along with environmental, health and safety professionals are forced to jump from problem to problem, one chemical ban or phase-out at a time resulting in pressure to create quick fixes. Every alternative involves risk, effort, investment, and hassle of all sorts. The only way to have good alternatives is to have many alternatives – i.e. avoid the search for the single ‘right chemical.’

If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it for it is not to be reached by search or trial. Ecolink’s creativity enhanced by provocation has generated outrageous alternatives ranging from our development of our flagship products Electron and Positron to our recent approval of low VOC MIL-PRF-680C, Type V.

Because we are dealing with the science of chemistry and the art of lean(er) cleaning during maintenance or production, we deconstruct each formulation to judge the merits of each ingredient by percentage of composition. Once decoupled, we bubble up/down each and evaluate alternatives through a forced pair comparison. Asking:

• Which is more efficient in reducing waste and conserving resources?
• Which is easier to implement?
• Which costs less?

This establishes criteria to evaluate based on your ability to implement and total cost of ownership, which has been proven as more important than effectiveness.