Water-Based Cleaners & Degreasers

This is the largest family in the range and the one most plants start with. The water does the transport and the concentrate does the work: surfactants wet the surface and reach into blind holes and thread roots, alkaline builders saponify fatty oils into soluble soaps, and emulsifiers hold mineral oil in suspension so it can be skimmed or filtered out instead of redepositing on the next basket.

Choosing within the family comes down to three questions. What metal — alkaline grades suit steel and cast iron, while aluminium, zinc, brass and mixed baskets need a neutral-pH grade, because alkalinity above roughly pH 10 etches those metals and leaves a surface that blooms into white rust. What equipment — spray washers and ultrasonic baths both require a low-foam grade, since foam aerates a spray pump and cushions the cavitation that does the cleaning in an ultrasonic tank. And what soil — light maintenance films sit at the bottom of the dilution band, heavy machining oil and buffing compound at the top.

The commercial case is straightforward. An aqueous bath at 55–65 °C runs far below the 90–100 °C a trichloroethylene vapour degreaser needs, there is no solvent vapour to monitor and no flammable store to maintain, and the effluent is a declared, biodegradable aqueous stream rather than a hazardous solvent waste. Replacing trichloroethylene, kerosene, diesel and naphtha with this chemistry is the work Roovel Solutions has been doing in Indian plants since 2000.

The trade-off is that water has to be removed. An aqueous line needs a rinse and a drying stage, and bare steel flash-rusts within minutes of a hot rinse — which is why every concentrate in this family carries a corrosion inhibitor as part of the formulation.