Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Best OTC detergent for washing glassware

Best OTC detergent for washing glassware

cnidocyte - 6-1-2011 at 11:32

I read that one has to choose their surfactants wisely when washing glassware because many household soaps and detergents leave residue on the glassware. In college by the sink areas in the lab, they leave wash bottles of this green solution labelled "teepol" and it forms suds like soap when mixed with water. From what I've gathered "teepol" is a brand name for a line of cleaning products
http://teepol.co.uk/
doing some googling, it appears that the teepol product most suited for cleaning lab glassware is called Teepol L
http://teepol.co.uk/index.php?file=/products/l.page
http://uk.vwr.com/app/catalog/Catalog?parent_class_id=4&...
I don't know if this can be bought OTC or not. This Teepol Multi-Usage

looks like what we had in the lab but I dunno if all teepol products are green or not. Which teepol products are suitable for cleaning glassware. Also do you know of any other OTC detergents that are suitable?

hkparker - 6-1-2011 at 16:37

I've really liked comet sink cleaner, followed by a good wash with water to get rid of residue. Not sure if its idea but its worked well for me.

Ozone - 6-1-2011 at 16:44

Any automatic dishwasher detergent, like cascade. Unfortunately, they just pulled all of the phosphorus out so it doesn't work nearly as well. With P it was almost as good as alkanox powder.

We used Dreft brand washing powder back in the Chemistry labs at LSU and it did the trick.

Cheers,

O3

DougTheMapper - 6-1-2011 at 18:03

I honestly almost never use soap at all. I usually wash with something cheap that will chemically attack whatever's in the flask.

For instance, I recently took CuO residue out of a beaker with HCl, I remove oils and such with acetone and then NaOH with water, and warm piranha solution works well for carbon.

Since NaOH, acetone, and HCl are available cheaply and in bulk, cleaning usually involves neither soap nor scrubbing. Heck, sometimes all it takes is several vigorous rinses with really hot water.

I suppose the exception lately has been MnO2 since it has a tendency to release Cl2 with HCl and is not soluble in water or acetone. I used Ajax, water, and a soft cloth for that.

Ozone - 6-1-2011 at 18:07

I distinctly remember once complaining about how I could not find a solvent that would remove a pesky residue. MeOH, acetone? nope. Hexanes, THF, ether? nada. And then I remembered good old water

. I shot a little soap (I keep diluted alkanox in a squirt-bottle) and some water in there and eureka!

If that doesn't work, there's always the base-bath

Cheers,
O3

Saerynide - 7-1-2011 at 07:48

Dish detergent from walmart/target. The cheapest generic brand. Works wonders. Alkanox is great too. I dont like using NaOH to clean glass since it makes the glass hydrophobic. When my glass can hold onto an unbroken film of water, *thats* what I call clean glass

MagicJigPipe - 8-1-2011 at 17:53

Quote:

my glass can hold onto an unbroken film of water

Hmmmmm... I would rather my glass be hydrophobic for some reason (unless, of course, someone can give me a good reason why I wouldn't). In every other area of life hydrophobicity makes for easier cleaning.

I suppose it would be bad for heat transfer... But is it really that much of an effect? I don't know.

BromicAcid - 8-1-2011 at 20:21

Quote: Originally posted by MagicJigPipe

There are treatments with silating agents that people purposely use to make their glassware hydrophobic.

Also in terms of detergents to use I've seen Liquinox used in a professional setting explicitly for the purpose of cleaning glassware.

unionised - 9-1-2011 at 02:05

Quote: Originally posted by MagicJigPipe

Quote:

my glass can hold onto an unbroken film of water

Because if it's hydrophobic then it's not clean glass (and, in my experience NaOH , while it does attack the glass, doesn't leave it hydrophobic.)

peach - 9-1-2011 at 02:45

I've washed sinters with boiling piranha before, and I find Daz biological also does a great job for the less enduring muck. Soaking also helps.

I use it to mop the floors in the house as well, it's absolutely amazing compared to normal soap - due to all the enzyme activity munching through the organic gunk.

I have worked in a factory packing cosmetic products and genuinely know (having seen it in person) that pretty much all of it is the same thing in a different packet with whatever price the packing and aleo vera looks worth. Whether it's the budget no name brand, or the tesco's special for six times more, same thing basically.

Same for toothpaste, and soaps, disinfectant, and OTC pharmaceuticals, electronics, and lots of others.

I use KOH for LOTS of cleaning, or sulphuric / hydrochloric. Almost always KOH if the Daz won't work, and finish by warming the glass up and rinsing it with a squirt of acetone. Comes out absolutely spotless.

As for it making the glass hydrophobic - are you sure you're not thinking of pretreating to make it hydrophobic, where it's etched with base before the hydrophobic coating goes on? Mine always whets fine and behaves normally.

Can't use base washing for sintered glass - you'll ruin the sinters over time.

The most important aspect of washing glass is to make sure you rinse it over and over to remove any surfactants / acids / bases.

[Edited on 9-1-2011 by peach]

grndpndr - 9-1-2011 at 03:37

Speaking of rinsing I have to buy dist water to rinse my glassware given the alkaline nature of the Hot mineral water that issues from the tap.Its very nearly unpottable given the radon/mineral content.(A glass of tap water left overnight/covered will have some sort of a flocculant floating around,probably not the best rinse?!)
A good washing with whatevers at hand(dish liq) as long as it removes the visible crud along with thorough tap water rinsing and finally dist water does the trick.

Our grocery store with its thriving buisiness community of 500 may yet have some of the vile phosphorous detergents.

[Edited on 9-1-2011 by grndpndr]

[Edited on 9-1-2011 by grndpndr]

peach - 9-1-2011 at 03:53

Holy smokes!

Sounds like you need to stick some form of water treatment on your house.

You can get softners for that, but they're a few hundred pounds I think.

Saerynide - 9-1-2011 at 04:41

Quote: Originally posted by peach

As for it making the glass hydrophobic - are you sure you're not thinking of pretreating to make it hydrophobic, where it's etched with base before the hydrophobic coating goes on? Mine always whets fine and behaves normally.

Hmmm... Maybe the people in my lab seriously over do it, or they are just extremely lazy. They like to throw all the glass into a bucket of EtOH/NaOH because they don't like to use bottle brushes. Everything becomes hydrophobic after and it really bothers me because it makes me feel that it's not clean as water no longer sticks nicely to the surface. I know they aren't doing it to pretreat the glass because they just toss the glass in you end up with glass thats half hydrophobic half normal because half the glass was floating above the soln

Arthur Dent - 9-1-2011 at 06:09

Cool thread, good to know all the various techniques used by you guys!

I only use 3 cleaning detergents for my various glassware. For plain solvent and soluble salts, I use warm/hot water and Dawn dishwashing liquid soap. It works wonders and leaves the glass surface like new! I use paper towels to dab off the excess water.

Complex glassware with lots of kinks and hard to reach angles get a small amount of acetone to displace the remaining wash water. I use a piece of felt pipe cleaner wire with Dawn soap sometimes if these's gunk in an unreachable corner

For more tenacious stains and dried-up gunk, good ol' C.L.R. does wonders, and after treatment with that stuff, I proceed to wash again with plain soap.

And then for the really rough stuff, I go all out and let the heavily stained material sit in hydrochloric acid. I only used that once, for a graham condenser that was extremely stained with all sorts of crap and oxides. It looked like factory-new after the wash! I used Conc. HCl with an equal amount of water, and put the condenser in a pyrex glass cooking dish, carefully filling the serpentine and envelope with a rubber bulb with a teflon tip.

Robert

Steve_hi - 23-1-2011 at 03:11

I just wash everything with a commercial generic brand dishwasher detergent that contains mostly Sodium carbonate.
Then after a good rinse with hot tap water I finish with Phosphoric acid that I buy from the local building supplies "Rona" or "Homedepot" or "Canadian tire" and a final rinse with distilled water. Humidifier cleaner "Bioaire" is one brand, I leave it in a stoppered flask until I figure it's spent befor disposing of it I will be prepairing a covered bath so I can leave things soaking in it untill I'm ready to clean everything up.

[Edited on 23-1-2011 by Steve_hi]

Saerynide - 23-1-2011 at 05:21

I once had to clean the insides of a graham condenser and there was no way a pipecleaner would go inside and ever come back out, so I filled it with IPA and salt and shook the hell out of it

Arthur Dent - 15-5-2011 at 05:47

Reviving this "Cleaning" thread for a while. I have an odd question... I have purchased some nice glassware recently, including a Friedrichs condenser by Ace Glassware (http://www.aceglass.com/page.php?page=5970) and to my surprise, when I dunked it in weak acid (about 10% HCl solution), after a few hours, I noticed that the red Ace Glassware logo had become dark red and... it just rubbed off under my thumb!

There's also a frac. distillation column that did the same thing... Aren't logos on glassware supposed to resist the most intense of chemicals? I would have understood if it was a strong, concentrated acid, but the HCl solution I use is weak enough that I dip my hand in it with no ill effect.

Now I have a nice Friedrichs condenser with no markings on it. Strange that the white Pyrex and Kimax logos can resist nearly boiling sulphuric acid for hours...

Is there a way to clean my glassware without stripping off the logos and taper size info? So far, only HCl has proven useful and inexpensive to clean well, I avoid using sulphuric because frankly, it scares me, and phosphoric acid is very good but way too expensive to waste on cleaning glassware.

Robert

Arthur Dent - 15-5-2011 at 06:08

Reviving this "Cleaning" thread for a while. I have an odd question... I have purchased some nice glassware recently, including a Friedrichs condenser by Ace Glassware (http://www.aceglass.com/page.php?page=5970) and to my surprise, when I dunked it in weak acid (about 10% HCl solution), after a few hours, I noticed that the red Ace Glassware logo had become dark red and... it just rubbed off under my thumb!

digitalemu - 24-5-2011 at 12:49

Quote: Originally posted by Arthur Dent

Reviving this "Cleaning" thread for a while. I have an odd question... I have purchased some nice glassware recently, including a Friedrichs condenser by Ace Glassware (http://www.aceglass.com/page.php?page=5970) and to my surprise, when I dunked it in weak acid (about 10% HCl solution), after a few hours, I noticed that the red Ace Glassware logo had become dark red and... it just rubbed off under my thumb!

I would avoid cleaning the outside of such items in HCL if you can and find an alternate way of cleaning. Logos on glassware are supposed to be resistant to brief exposure, not soaking. If you are worried about losing the logo's use a splash and rinse method of cleaning them, I.E splash the 10% HCL on the glassware and give it a quick rinse with water. If there is something on the outside of your glassware that will just not go away with a splash and rinse method, then try just soap and water with scrubbing or even kitchen vinegar may work. Either way, all markings tend to get lighter or even disappear over time and the reason why Pyrex and Kimax logos remain is because they use a more resistive paint on their glass.