PBW and alternatives

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Carnot
Piss Artist
Posts: 162
Joined: Wed Sep 13, 2017 8:32 pm

PBW and alternatives

Post by Carnot » Fri Feb 23, 2018 3:30 pm

Most of us are familiar with PBW and the main disinfectant ingredient being sodium percarbonate. Sodium percarbonate is one of the ingredients in Vanish and the Lidl clone Formil. Many compositions contains sodium percarbonate, sodium carbonate and sometimes sodium metasilicate. I have used sodium percarbonate on its own and in combination with carbonate and silicate. It is hard to see any major advantage either way but the addition of carbonate and silicate will reduce cost for a given weight of material, and buffers more. The final pH will be high and as a result when used with hard water will result in some white precipitation, which is calcium carbonate.Buying these ingredients is very easy.

Oxidising disinfectants work in the same manner as chlorine bleach but without the drawbacks. It reacts to form hydrogen peroxide in solution and is relatively safe compared to some alternatives.

Here is a link to a website that give more information and explains the function of the the components. The table on different brands is very useful.

http://cryptobrewology.com/home-brewing ... cleansers/

Foot note - no pun intended. I used to suffer from athletes foot. Soaking my feet in a warm solution of sodium percarbonate for 5 minutes several times cleared it up completely. I did check out the MSDS and tox information before doing this.

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