"Green" products

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Jeff

New User
Jeff
Environmentally friendly, safer, etc. yada, yada, yada!

Read the first paragraph which defines their "Green" products and take a look a closer look at this product line and their MSDS/SDS data sheets with their chemical compositions.

http://www.kleanstrip.com/product/green

If I make it and I think that it's environmentally friendly then I can label it as a "Green" product? :icon_scra
 

AllanD

Allan
Corporate Member
Thanks Jeff, that's pretty interesting. Green muriatic acid. After reading deeper it also brings up one of my peeves or reveals my advanced skepticism. They claim their brush cleaner has no methylene chloride but the MSDS won't tell us what the active ingredients are (trade secret). I refuse to use a product like this that won't tell us what is in it, just trust our advertising claims. I might for instance use the muriatic acid if it in fact has 90% less volatility but not if they don't explain how.
 

Bill Clemmons

Bill
Corporate Member
Notice how they use words that are difficult, nearly impossible, to define or pin down. Pretty standard tactic in the advertising world.

"Klean-Strip® Green™ are the products that are better for the environment. When you compare standard products with the Klean-Strip® Green™ lineup, you’ll find our eco-friendly products are not only formulated for effective performance, but also have a reduced impact on the world in which we live. Klean-Strip® Green™ offers products that:"
 

Hmerkle

Board of Directors, Development Director
Hank
Staff member
Corporate Member
Notice how they use words that are difficult, nearly impossible, to define or pin down. Pretty standard tactic in the advertising world.

"Klean-Strip® Green™ are the products that are better for the environment. When you compare standard products with the Klean-Strip® Green™ lineup, you’ll find our eco-friendly products are not only formulated for effective performance, but also have a reduced impact on the world in which we live. Klean-Strip® Green™ offers products that:"
"Sales and Marketing" words in top form!
 

nn4jw

New User
Jim
I could be wrong, I often am, but I don't think "Green" has any kind of standardized or regulated meaning and anyone can use it to mean whatever they want to lure in the suck.... , er customers.
 

Jeff

New User
Jeff
I could be wrong, I often am, but I don't think "Green" has any kind of standardized or regulated meaning and anyone can use it to mean whatever they want to lure in the suck.... , er customers.

That's my take too.

If I make it and I think that it's environmentally friendly then I can label it as a "Green" product? :icon_scra
 

FlyingRon

Moderator
Ron
Muriatic acid, while it can be dangerous to your skin is pretty environmentally friendly. It will break down pretty easily. Now MethylEthylBadstuff is another story.
 

willarda

New User
Bill Anderson
I have switched to a "green" solvent for cleaning both oil and water finishes. Composed of ethyl acetate (combo of ethanol and acetic acid). Listed actually safe. Ir has worked well for cleaning brushes and has taken the paint of my brush handles!
 

Hmerkle

Board of Directors, Development Director
Hank
Staff member
Corporate Member
I have switched to a "green" solvent for cleaning both oil and water finishes. Composed of ethyl acetate (combo of ethanol and acetic acid). Listed actually safe. Ir has worked well for cleaning brushes and has taken the paint of my brush handles!
Bill, can you share the maker of the product or are you mixing it "home made?" If so, where do you get the ethyl acetate and ethanol? And what are the mixing quantities?
 

Jeff

New User
Jeff
I have switched to a "green" solvent for cleaning both oil and water finishes. Composed of ethyl acetate (combo of ethanol and acetic acid). Listed actually safe. Ir has worked well for cleaning brushes and has taken the paint of my brush handles!

My chemical intuition says something isn't right about part of this scene.

1. Ethyl acetate is an ester prepared from ethanol and acetic acid. It smells like nail polish, is insoluble in water, and is called a VOC (volatile organic compound) in environmental terms.

http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Ethyl+Acetate

2. Mixing ethanol and acetic acid is...just a mixture of the two. It is not ethyl acetate!

Ethyl acetate should work fine for cleaning oil based (petroleum type) finishes but I can't see it doing squat for water based finishes.
 

timf67

New User
Tim
Ethyl Acetate smells like nail polish because it is the solvent used for nail polish. It is also the solvent used in the non-acetone nail polish removers. Acetates are very good solvents (I used to make different acetates when I worked at Exxon Chemical years ago) and fairly safe.

The other comment that I wanted to make is that in looking at the SDS sheets for the Kleen-Strip products, they look pretty standard to me. I write SDS's for my company's products and we are not required to list an ingredient if it would cause us to lose a competitive advantage. As long as all of the hazards are properly listed, the actual chemical does not have to be listed. Once you become familiar with the new GHS standard hazard statements, you can usually figure out what the chemical is or at least the family the chemical is in.
 

Jeff

New User
Jeff
we are not required to list an ingredient if it would cause us to lose a competitive advantage.

So these are listed as "proprietary" or "trade secret" ingredients on the MSDS/SDS. Correct?

If my product contains methylene chloride but I don't want to disclose that for all to see I can I list it as "proprietary" or it must be listed specifically because its such a bad actor?
 

bluedawg76

New User
Sam
So these are listed as "proprietary" or "trade secret" ingredients on the MSDS/SDS. Correct?

If my product contains methylene chloride but I don't want to disclose that for all to see I can I list it as "proprietary" or it must be listed specifically because its such a bad actor?

methylene chloride would need to be listed b/c it's hazardous
 

willarda

New User
Bill Anderson
"Green" solvent source

Bill, can you share the maker of the product or are you mixing it "home made?" If so, where do you get the ethyl acetate and ethanol? And what are the mixing quantities?

The solvent I have been using recently is from a company called Bio Solve (www.greenacetone.com), part of Bio Brands, LLC located in NJ, 1-800-398-7556. Product number 35-332. You can buy it in any quantity although I am sticking to pints and quarts. It has a sweet smell as acetates often do. Can't remember the price but not high enough to give me pause. Plus my wife has emphatically decreed (with tears--so there is no argument there!) that there will be no more env. hazardous chemicals in the shop. The bone marrow transplant I recently went through was very likely caused by early exposure to solvents. My dad was a house painter and my brother and I (even in diapers) would stick our hands in solvents to clean his brushes (early 50's when we were all naïve!), plus my whole career was working with exotic solvents in chemistry labs.

They list it as a brush cleaner, brush conditioner, for surface preparation and clean-up, graffiti and adhesive removal and that it cleans up with cold water. It does not evaporate rapidly. They state it is not a thinner. They state that it has no environmentally hazardous ingredients. On their website you can review the MSDS--lots of info in there, most useless to the hoi poloi, but the composition is listed and I am pretty sure I remember it to be ethylacetate. I can verify most of the stated properties. It does not however easily take off ink (some of my planes I am using it on are autographed).

They do state that the product is flammable, is a skin irritant and poses inhalation hazard. This is pretty standard for all solvents including water (depending on the temperature and volume applied!). It is only clear that you use it with gloves on, and in a well ventilated area. I do all of my cleaning, scrubbing, etc. with solvents outside the shop on a table reserved for this activity.
 

Jeff

New User
Jeff
Re: "Green" solvent source

Organic chemist to organic chemist-you're pretty knowledgable and that's good in order to minimize "chemical panic" at the mention of the word chemical.

Your new solvent is ethyl lactate and not ethyl acetate. Interestingly, the MSDS is 10-90% ethyl lactate and 10-90% "proprietary co-solvent". What? It could be 10% ethyl lactate and 90% mystery solvent which is harmless to you and the environment (trust us on this one?).

https://greenacetone.com/wp-content/uploads/2014-BIO-SOLV-MSDS616.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethyl_lactate

So who knows what you're using with such a poorly defined composition?
 

willarda

New User
Bill Anderson
Re: "Green" solvent source

Organic chemist to organic chemist-you're pretty knowledgable and that's good in order to minimize "chemical panic" at the mention of the word chemical.

Your new solvent is ethyl lactate and not ethyl acetate. Interestingly, the MSDS is 10-90% ethyl lactate and 10-90% "proprietary co-solvent". What? It could be 10% ethyl lactate and 90% mystery solvent which is harmless to you and the environment (trust us on this one?).

https://greenacetone.com/wp-content/uploads/2014-BIO-SOLV-MSDS616.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethyl_lactate

So who knows what you're using with such a poorly defined composition?


Jeff: really good points. I should have read the MSDS more closely. Having worked at the EPA I know that (just to throw out some WAG numbers), there are >50,000 chemicals on the market and thousands of new ones each year. About 10 have been studied in great detail for toxicology, etc. The rest are either grouped into groups assumed to have similar toxicological properties and/or the FDA needs to rely on research from the makers of these chemicals. Which they do a great job of trying to keep these companies in line but you can imagine from the magnitudes stated that this is a desperate proposition.

So we are reduced to two choices: one choice is a known poison, the other choice is completely unknown other than the one component which may be a minority or a majority component. However, the company makes claims that seemingly would be a legal basis for prosecution if they were untruths. If I were in that business, I would try to hedge my bets by using slightly more obfuscating language (!). So I am inclined to trust their advertising is as stated (but with a pit in my stomach!).
 

Jeff

New User
Jeff
Re: "Green" solvent source

That's okay too and there are no absolute guarantees for health and safety or whether the product works as claimed.

I've been sounding like a health & safety nut with paranoia about chemicals and their effects on health and the environment. The truth is I have carelessly used chemicals/solvents for years without apparent adverse effects on me or my family. Maybe that's been cavalier with debts to be paid later but at 69 I don't expect to be 169 either.
 
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