Chemical resistance to Ecolab cleaners

Jan Michels | 7. October 2020

The safety of food and drink is crucial to the well-being and health of people around the world. The cleaning and disinfection of food and beverage machines is therefore extremely important.

One of the best-known manufacturers of cleaning and disinfection products for this industry is Ecolab. Such cleaners are typically used in beverage filling machines. But intensive cleaning is also carried out in butcher’s shops, dairies and machines for vegetable processing.

We have therefore tested our usual materials used in the food, beverage and packaging industry for resistance to various Ecolab cleaners:

• Topactive 200 (2-5%),
• Topactive 500 (2-5%)
• P3-topax 66 (2-5%),
• P3-topax 990 (1-3%),
• P3-topactive Okto (0.5-1%).

Test specimens were completely immersed in the respective cleaner for a period of 28 days (equivalent to 672 hours). There was a constant room temperature. The test evaluation was then carried out under various aspects:

• Visual assessment: swelling, cracks, colour changes, surfaces, outer diameter and wall thickness.
• Comparison with the zero value (starting material and demineralised water).
• Photo documentation.

The following materials proved to be resistant to the Ecolab cleaning agents used in the test:

• iglidur A160, A180, A181, A350 and A500;
• iglidur C500;
• iglidur H, H1 and H370;
• iglidur J, J3, J200 and J350;
• iglidur P210;
• iglidur X and X6;
• iglidur Z;
• igumid TH-NB.