What can be used in a domestic setting to remove silicone from surfaces such as bathroom tiles, painted wood, etc.
The silicone has come from either spray polish or from spray silicone lubricant. Seems hard to remove.
Glass Cleaner. Any brand that contains isopropanyl or vinegar.
Dave
Acetone or alcohol is a good start. If you tweak it with a little KOH or NaOH, it can also help.
All these materials are more or less hazardous, so use with discretion.
I spoke with a very helpful bloke at Triplex after a garage managed to get silicone all over my windscreen, and you couldn't see through it when it rained due to water beading. Answer was that it forms a week bond with the glass which makes it difficult to remove, but not impossible. This might also be true of glazed tiles, etc. Method is to wash off with white spirit and paper towels. Change the paper towel very frequently, and expect to use a whole kitchen roll to get a windscreen clean. Also, particularly relevant to a windscreen, silicone soaks into rubber which cannot be cleaned. So chuck away the windscreen wiper blades which will keep recontaminating the glass, and when cleaning the glass, be careful not to run the paper toweling over any rubber winscreen seal, which will contaminate the paper towel and hence recoat the glass. It only takes a one molecule thick layer on glass to cause water beading -- I don't know why you want to clean it off, but it maybe that you don't need to get the underlying surface clean enough to prevent water beading.
The alternative is to coat the windscreen with Rain-X or similar.
However you equally can't remove the Rain-X in the future, should you wish to.
In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Andy Dingley scribed:
I wouldn't worry about that. Mine never used to last more than about a month anyway!
N.
On tiles try cellulose thinners or acetone. Those would be too fierce for painted wood - there's a risk of removing the paint even with white spirit.
I remember trying a mixture of 17-18% aromatic white spirit with 3-5% of dodecyl p-toluene sulfonic acid which was pretty good to remove our silicone sealants. We gelled it (can't remember with which kind of material, maybe fumed silica) and applied it on the sealant for at least 10min. The "attacked sealant" can be easily removed with a spatula.
IPA and alcohols would probably not be strong enough, but you can use it to clean surfaces such as glass. Maybe you can try some MEK before to remove the main contaminants.
Hope this will help. Don't hesitate to contact me if needed.
Nicolas DELFAU FRANCE snipped-for-privacy@peintures-sob.fr
"david lang" a écrit dans le message de news: yWDwf.23692$ snipped-for-privacy@text.news.bluey>> What can be used in a domestic setting to remove silicone from
In news:dq02do$vnk$ snipped-for-privacy@s1.news.oleane.net, Nicolas DELFAU scribed:
What the....? Look, we're D.I.Y'ers here, not particle phycisists or somesuch! Mon Dieu! ;-)
N.
OK, sorry for that slang, So, try toluene with a little dish cleaner.
"nrh" a écrit dans le message de news:
5HMwf.23813$ snipped-for-privacy@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
Minor point, but the OP was talking about silicone lubricant, not sealant.
IPA will remove the oil just fine, but you are right that it would make no impression on cured sealant.
Don't you then have to re-coat it ?
IMHE, Rain-X worked pretty well when it was fresh. But when it was slightly worn it was like driving with the dirtiest windscreen you'd ever had, and the wipers did nothing to help.
I use special water to remove things like wallpaper, silicone and water stains. bob
The sealant contains some portion of the lubricant - as I understand it, to modify the properties.
I tried some full strength isopropyl but it didn't work.
Maybe the type of silicone is a factor. Perhaps some silicones are susceptible to isopropyl more than others are.
The acetone wasn't very good either. The KOH makes an interesting difference.
I did use some kitchen cleaner with bleach. Don't know the pH of the this stuff but it was made up mainly of non-ionic surfactants and a surprisingly decent amount of bleach.
-- snip --
I also tried white spirit but like isopropyl and also acetone, it had surprisingly limited effect.
I suspect that if you are rubbing the surface with a whole kitchen roll then you are probably mopping it up as much as anything.
I did try a microfibre cloth thinking it might lock onto the silicone in the same way that it does with oils but I didn't get much joy.
We used to use causticized alcohol to clean the burets in university chem lab after they got contaminated with silicone stopcock grease. Of course, the caustic decomposes silicone oils.
Ketones and esters can be pretty good solvents for some silicones, but alcohols are usually easier to obtain. I have used dibutylketone and octyl acetate as solvents for some special silicones.
Kitchen cleaners like Bon Ami are not very abrasive and present a very large surface area onto which the silicones can adsorb. They can be useful in this way, when applied with a decent solvent.
It does indeed. (and in fact IPA will remove *uncured* sealant very cleanly)
^^^^^^
What's one of they, then? Are youse a sci.chem psoter?
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