Environmentally-Friendly, Non-Toxic Hand Cleaner
Technology description
Most industrial and household solvents for removing paint, grease, glue, etc. are toxic to animals, humans and the environment, and they cannot be disposed of safely in municipal water systems.
Such solvents contain known carcinogens such as toluene and benzene, and therefore are hazardous under prolonged exposure to the skin. As many of these solvents are also highly volatile, they emit harmful vapors, making them flammable and difficult to store safely.
Increasingly, there is a desire and need for more environmentally-friendly skin cleansers. A cleanser which is "environmentally-friendly" is one which is generally benign to the environment and human health in particular.
This invention is an environmentally-friendly, two-bottle, two-step system for removing grease, paint, and the like from surfaces and the skin. One bottle contains a food grade solvent, which when applied dissolves the unwanted materials. The second bottle contains a soap product that neutralizes the solvent when combined with water and leaves hands smooth and clean.
There are numerous household, commercial and industrial uses for this product – even outside of the proposed hand cleaner application. To date, the product has been successfully used in the laboratory to clean glassware, and commercially tested to clean paint brushes and to strip dried paint.
Advantages
The novel features of the environmentally-friendly hand wash are:
- It is a food-grade solvent that can be applied freely to the skin and disposed of in water.
- It is non-toxic and non-hazardous when used as directed and has a high flashpoint (meaning it is much less volatile than petroleum-based solvents).
- It contains lanolin - a known skin moisturizer.
Stage of development
A prototype has been developed and successfully tested on a small scale in the laboratory and commercially.
Intellectual property
- US Patent Pending
- Canadian Patent Pending
This technology is available for licensing.
Contact information
Office of Research Services, Industry-Government Services
University of New Brunswick
Phone: (506) 453-4674
partner@unb.ca
