How Green and Does it Clean: Methodologies for Assessing Cleaning Products for Safety and Performance

Abstract Industrial surface cleaning is performed for a number of reasons. It may be required to prepare the surfaces of parts prior to manufacturing processes such as welding or painting. It may be performed for aesthetic reasons as an aid to marketing and sales. The cleaning process is imperative to perform well and changing from a proved process can seem daunting. However, the change is sometimes necessary as many cleaning products contain harmful chemicals that can have serious adverse effects. Therefore, a systematic method for assessing environmental, health, and safety is an important step in the selection process. There are many tools that exist to make this an easier task. Once a safer alternative is identified, performance testing is needed because if a product is green but does not work, then so what. Nobody is going to use it. Solvents have been used for many years in all fields of cleaning and were often performed via single-species vapor degreasing operation. This streamlined approach was due to traditional solvents’ superior ability to dissolve organic matter. The alternatives tend to not be one-size-fits-all type of solution and require performance verification. The problem with the way most people evaluate cleaning product effectiveness is that their comparisons tend to be subjective, not scientific. However, well-written test protocols and repeatable science needs to play a key role in choosing cleaning products that work consistently well. Combining these lab-based methods with in-field process-specific testing will result in the identification of safer and effective cleaning alternatives.