Metal Cleaning Products: How to Choose the Right Ones

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Metal cleaning products play a crucial role in a variety of work processes, from flux removal, to engine degreasing, to tank cleaning, to removing light accumulations from common metal surfaces. If your company or organization is in the market for metal cleaning products, it’s important to start the selection process by taking the four steps below, which will help you choose cleaners that are perfect for your work processes and safe for your workers to use.

  1. Identify Products Designed for the Application

How do you clean metal? There are various options, including vapor degreasing, hand wiping, spray and air dry, and power washing, just to name four. Because there is no use in purchasing metal cleaning products that aren’t designed for your cleaning applications, it makes the most sense to start by identifying products that are designed for your specific processes. After limiting your search to application-specific products, you can move to step 2 and focus on selecting products whose ingredients are non-corrosive for the types of metal you need to clean.

  1. Select Products With Non-Corrosive Ingredients

Some metal cleaning products are corrosive to some types of metals and not others. For example, cleaners that contain sodium hypochlorite have been shown to readily corrode aluminum and carbon steel, compromising their surface quality and fracture strength. However, this cleaning agent is typically considered compatible with 303 stainless steel. If you need help identifying non-corrosive cleaning agents for the type of metal you need to clean, don’t resort to informed guesswork. Contact the chemists at Ecolink for help selecting non-corrosive cleaners.

  1. Choose Cleaners That are not EPA Regulated

As efficacious as a metal cleaner may be for your cleaning needs, it won’t do you much good if you can’t use it in sufficient quantities to perform cleaning operations. This is what can happen when a cleaning solution contains ingredients that are listed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) List of Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs). Chemicals on the list are generally not illegal to use, but their use in industrial facilities is regulated to the point that most companies simply can’t use enough of them to adequately support crucial metal cleaning operations.

  1. Consider Cost Factors for a Particular Cleaner

Last but certainly not least, consider how much it would cost to implement a particular cleaner. In addition to the cost of the product, consider how using it would impact waste disposal cost, whether using it would require you to outfit workers with a higher level of personal protective equipment (PPE), whether a special ventilation system would be needed for the work environment, and whether using the solution would put you at risk for violating emissions caps. If you are looking for a long-term solution, cost should always be a major consideration.

Contact Ecolink for Metal Cleaning Products
Metal cleaning products can be distinguished in several ways, such as whether they are designed for a particular cleaning operation, whether they contain ingredients that would corrode the metal you need to clean, whether they are EPA regulated, and the overall cost of using them. The product specialists at Ecolink can help you select metal cleaning products that account for these considerations and have the safety profile that you need for workers and the environment. Call us today at (800) 563-1305 for help selecting the right metal cleaners.