Hockeydemon - 3-4-2013 at 02:52
This maybe pointless without providing you all our MSDS, but I'm too ignorant to know without asking first haha.
I work at a hotel, and because of this we have tons of cleaning chemicals, pool chemicals, and other random things. We have two huge MSDS binders
telling me all of the chemicals we use. I'm pretty certain that the housekeeping manager (who orders the chemicals) would have no problem selling me
chemicals for cash if I asked (we hire illegals 
).
I already know that most of the pool chemicals are useful to me, but as far as I know they are the same exact ones I can already obtain through
normal retailers.
However many of the cleaning chemicals have ingredients I'm completely unfamiliar with. I would prefer to not google every chemical in these enormous
books, and then look for possible uses.
That being said are there any general purpose industrial chemicals that usually contain something worth having so I can narrow down my search? In
other words are there any chemicals used generally for X purpose in industrial cleaners that I should be looking for?
Worst case I can just provide some of the MSDS I think are worth mentioning, and then have someone confirm it would be worth my time..
Thanks 
Steve_hi - 3-4-2013 at 06:28
Some glass cleaners use/are denatured alcohol.
If your hotel has wooden decks maybe they use products containing sodium or potassium hydroxide or Oxalic acid for bleaching the wood to make it look
new again.
They could be using sodium hydroxide for cleaning cooking grills I've seen that product being sold at Rona.
and of course there is toilet bowl cleaners with hydrochloric and or phosphoric acid. Ammonia for washing floors and other things as well as sodium
hypochlorite for washing the sheets.etc
lots of cleaners can be useful but a lot of them have other crap in them. you should check with the maintaninace personel they may have some useful
chemicals like drain openers.
sulphuric acid or sodium hydroxide. Concrete etchers for precleaning before painting. I bought a gallon at Rona's for 17$ with no coloring in it.
[Edited on 3-4-2013 by Steve_hi]
Mercedesbenzene - 3-4-2013 at 07:46
http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/index.htm
Under ingredients you can find chemicals that are in specific products. The list is quite extensive. Also the search function allows you to type in
the name of a chemical and it will tell you what products contain it, and if your lucky how concentrated they are
radagast - 3-4-2013 at 13:31
"Industrial cleaning chemicals" is a broad category, and I'm not really familiar with it other than that ammonia and mineral acids belong to that
category and are generally useful.
As far as industrial chemicals that I use most often for organic synthesis, I'd say that they're largely used for stripping and cleaning paint. Ethyl
acetate, dichloromethane, hexanes, methanol, ethanol, etc. are eminently useful as solvents, recrystallization, extraction, or as systems for
TLC/column chromotography.
By the way, I've found that the MSDS for industrial chemicals aren't always reliable. For instance, I once made the mistake of assuming that MEK
Substitute (listed as 100% ethyl acetate) was just that, but evaporation of a small sample of it on a watch glass left a gooey residue. So,
unfortunately I think you have to take the MSDS with a grain of salt and verify purification some other way.
Fantasma4500 - 5-4-2013 at 04:37
well ''if the chemical does not have warnings on it, then its not worth buying''
meaning the more reactive the better, take those with the most hazardous warnings on, oxidizing would be the best you could find and corrosive..
but look at the most dangerous ones and then go check up on the chemical formula
violet sin - 5-4-2013 at 20:25
Working maintenance at a hotel I noticed they used a strong hydrogen peroxide bleaching solution. Turned my palms white for a min or two when I moved
the 15gal plastic drum to clean. Stung pretty good for a sec but had a sink right there, prob why i didnt grab gloves first. it was cheap I remember
but I never asked if they'd order me one. Take a look for it in your inventory. Most everything else you could buy at the hardware store. We didn't
really order cleaning chems.
*bleaching as in laundry for sheets, not decks which we also had
[Edited on 6-4-2013 by violet sin]
Oscilllator - 15-4-2013 at 01:57
havent even told us what country your in....
but really concentrated bleach can be quite useful, along with the already mentioned hydroxides.