Hey all, we’ve outgrown our Labconco dishwasher and are looking for something that can handle the “harsh” residue that is left behind on labware. What does everybody use if not washing by hand? This includes glass beakers, stainless steel vessels, …everything that the oil will touch and need to be removed from.
Thanks!
You can try CLR, or isopropyl alcohol with some salt or the brewing industry even has a product called Starsan that I have used quite effectively.
I’m sure some @LabOwner or @LabEmployees have some better solutions than my old bootlegging tricks.
We had a cheep injector next to out dishwasher at the office and we added Isopropyl Alchohol from a 55 gallon drum to the feed line of the dishwasher. I think we used the ratio of 3 parts H2O to Alchohol.
A solvent wash followed by a detergent if it’s particularly nasty, or just a lab grade detergent bath like 7X in warm water. Limonene happens to work particularly well on oils as a solvent. Avoid soaps. Avoid strong acids. Hand washing seems to be the most effective.
I like the Alchohol based products in our wash system, before they go back into an autoclave.
I guess I am cheep.
I love to have a commercial dishwasher, but a high end stainless steal home dishwasher does the same thing, for 1/4 the investment. The small guys can afford that. We just modify the water line to inject our cleaning solutions in during the wash cycle. A 50 dollar double check valve from Grainger for a 1/4 inch line keeps any backflow from occurring. Buy a dishwasher with a sanitary cycle.
Yeah, this is good stuff, thanks guys…
I think I may try some of these ideas as a pre-soak. I kind of agree that hand-washing may be most effective; however, as we advance towards cGMP standards, I don’t think that’ll fly… also, we don’t have the man-hours to spend doing the manual thing at this point.
Is StarSan an emulsifier? I use it brewing beer at home, but thought it was a weak acid…
Hand wash is just to big a labor killer. I could have kept a high school kid employed 20 hours a week just cleaning stuff.
I think it depends on the size of the lab. If you are big there are some food grade industrial dishwasher for lab usage. They do a good job but they start at 4 K and go up to 20 K per unit. We had them in every lab biology at the University. The I used in plant pathology was high end it was next to the 5 high speed titanium core centrifuges, that sucked.
The commercial units have set ups for injection of up to 4 cleaning products. You pick what you want to use each step. They just need to be water based. EchoLabs has some good products for cleaning all sorts of nasty stuff.
I try to limit the glass that we need to clean.
Lots of disposable petridishes instead of glass. Not environmentally friendly but a choice in cost.
Slides where never washed they where either made into permanent slides or thrown out.
One of the lab supplies companies like Carolina biological has a glycerin/Alchohol glass scrub. That is great for removal of pine tar like compounds. All of our turpentine type stuff, is Alchohol soluble. What is not Alchohol soluble is soluble in Astone. There are lab wash products that are labled as lab safe, that have asitone in them.
The issue is size of operation and what can you afford.
Take a look at lab supplies at our friends at Www.amazon.com.
Have you tried “Dawn”, mundane but it may solve your issues
Dawn plus alcohol works. Dawn alone makes a mess a horrid mess.
Does anyone have problems with your lab drain lines?
Limonene is just as cheap as isopropyl and better on oils, at least hand washing. I’d be curious to know how it works ina machine
Soaps should be avoided. Detergents are best. You want low foam for lab applications.
Hand washing is costly but a pre soak might be a happy medium
Anyone ever try a product called CitraSolve? It’s my favorite cleaning product for resin. Nice citrus smell, but you do have to rinse good. Based on citrus oil.
