Are all sodium percarbonate/powdered peroxide products equal
- Thread starter hanks75
- Start date
ACE
Member
Other than OSR type products sodium percarbonate is used as a prespray booster so, products will very greatly. Power-max is working well but I am worried about it striping the stain resistance despite the low PH. This may be misplaced fear because I have never used a sodium precarb prespray on a regular basis before.
Shawn Forsythe
RIP
If sodium Percarbonate (in it's purest form) is shipped in an inner package (e.g. jar) with a capacity exceeding 1 kilogram, the shipping container/box is supposed to be marked DOT hazardous (unless it is marked as ORMD- a consumer commodity). Because this increases the cost of parcel shipping significantly, raising the overall cost, some products are mixed with other compounds in order to lessen the oxidizer hazard below the threshold. The result is that the product is "less concentrated", and you use a bit more. Hopefully, for the user the net result is only that the product costs less to use because of no shipping surcharge offsetting the increase in product mix ratio.
Does this make the non-hazardous products inferior? That's a judgment call only the end-user can make. So in essence, with some Sodium Percarbonate products you may have to mix more into the solution, but in theory the only net negative may be that you have to physically dissolve more powder into the blended solution. You may come out ahead with the "weaker" product, from a product cost standpoint, but then again you may not.
What you see prevalent though is packaging sizes in 2 pound jars. As such, being less than 1 kilo (2.2 lbs), most of these products are Sodium Percarbonate in its purest form.
I have noticed though that some manufacturers are using an "ORMD" classification exception to ship "pure" Sodium percarbonate (even in large packaging sizes), so it doesn't have to go as a hazmat product. For as long as they do, the cleaner can really benefit over buying their percarbonate from a chemical supplier, who doesn't use that exception. This is yet one more reason for cleaners to buy their products as carpet cleaning compounds from Carpet Cleaning distributors, rather than some of the chemical supply houses that sell all kinds of industrial chemicals.
Does this make the non-hazardous products inferior? That's a judgment call only the end-user can make. So in essence, with some Sodium Percarbonate products you may have to mix more into the solution, but in theory the only net negative may be that you have to physically dissolve more powder into the blended solution. You may come out ahead with the "weaker" product, from a product cost standpoint, but then again you may not.
What you see prevalent though is packaging sizes in 2 pound jars. As such, being less than 1 kilo (2.2 lbs), most of these products are Sodium Percarbonate in its purest form.
I have noticed though that some manufacturers are using an "ORMD" classification exception to ship "pure" Sodium percarbonate (even in large packaging sizes), so it doesn't have to go as a hazmat product. For as long as they do, the cleaner can really benefit over buying their percarbonate from a chemical supplier, who doesn't use that exception. This is yet one more reason for cleaners to buy their products as carpet cleaning compounds from Carpet Cleaning distributors, rather than some of the chemical supply houses that sell all kinds of industrial chemicals.
ACE
Member
Shawn, What is the maximum PPM Precarb before there is a risk of bleaching carpet?
Shawn Forsythe
RIP
ACE said:
That's impossible to calculate. You are far better off doing pre-testing of the product you are going to use. The reason you can't give a figure is for two principal reasons.
1. The stability of the particular dye on the particular fiber is going to vary widely by type, construction, age, and condition of the fiber.
2. The rate at which the oxygen is released from the Sodium Percarbonate is going to depend on a variety of factors, including the chemical makeup of the solution in which the Percarbonate is blended, and the chemical makeup of the soil it is being used upon, as well as the temperature of the solution. The faster the liberation of oxygen, the more intense the bleaching action is going to be. You could have a weaker percarbonate mixture bleach out a fiber more intensely than a stronger solution, simply by virtue of a higher oxygen release rate of the former.
Stain elements on which you might choose to use an oxidizer also often negatively affect the dye stability on a fiber. All too often the stain remover gets the blame for bleaching a carpet, when the stain itself did most of the damage that led to color removal.
I kind of cringe a little when I hear people say... "I don't used that product anymore, because I have had it pull color out of the carpet when I used it on .......".
Really, you can only say that the product all-by-itself dangerously pulls color, when used as directed, on a pretest area that has no pre-existing issues.
Heathrow
Member
Shawn - when we're talking about the sodium percarbonate in it's purest form, what is the ph likely to be when it's in solution? What do you think the effect on ph would be after being added to a relatively low ph prespray (say 8 - 9)?
Thanks
Thanks
Shawn Forsythe
RIP
Sodium Percarbonate is typically ~85% Sodium carbonate peroxyhydrate and ~15% Sodium carbonate, and has a pH at 1% solution of 10.5. In use concentration, it's closer to 10 pH in tap water.
As to it's pH when mixed with something else, you need a lot more information than just the pH of the other product. In fact, calculating resultant pH is far beyond any practical means for us here as it depends on things like concentration, alkaline strength, buffering capacity, etc. All you really know, aside from actual experiment, is that it's going to be somewhere between 10.5 and 8.
When we do pH correction using a rinse, the resultant pH is a little more predictable simply because the sheer volume of the rinse overpowering the relatively small amount of target residue usually yields a final pH number far closer to that of the rinse, added to the fact that a good rinse will purposefully have good buffering capacity.
As to it's pH when mixed with something else, you need a lot more information than just the pH of the other product. In fact, calculating resultant pH is far beyond any practical means for us here as it depends on things like concentration, alkaline strength, buffering capacity, etc. All you really know, aside from actual experiment, is that it's going to be somewhere between 10.5 and 8.
When we do pH correction using a rinse, the resultant pH is a little more predictable simply because the sheer volume of the rinse overpowering the relatively small amount of target residue usually yields a final pH number far closer to that of the rinse, added to the fact that a good rinse will purposefully have good buffering capacity.
Larry Cobb
Member
Talk to a chemist you trust about the product you are using.
Concentrations do vary.
We have eliminated the HazMat charges by adding a significant amount of oxygen-stable enzyme to our Odor Attack.
Of course, this raises the price for the combined product.
Larry
Concentrations do vary.
We have eliminated the HazMat charges by adding a significant amount of oxygen-stable enzyme to our Odor Attack.
Of course, this raises the price for the combined product.
Larry
