Lord Corporation Develops Adhesive Stripping Solution to Remove Accumulated Material

    Lord Corporation has announced the development of a chemical stripper designed to save time as well as lower toxic waste disposal and labor cost.

   LORD® LokRelease™ 800 series Adhesive Stripping Solution is a chemical cleaning solution designed for removal of Flocklok®, Chemlok® and other adhesive products used in chemical manufacturing tanks, storage vessels, baths, pumps and transfer lines. This cleaning solution allows accumulated material to be removed without being dissolved.

   The specially formulated material takes advantage of Hansen Solubility Parameters, balancing dispersion, polarity and hydrogen bonding to swell dried-on adhesives.

    LORD® LokRelease™ 800 series Adhesive Stripping Solution

    While traditional products dissolve stuck-on adhesive, with the LokRelease 800 series, caked-on material swells and falls off in large chunks that can be filtered from solution.

   The cleaning solution can be recycled when contaminated media is filtered out (as compared to being disposed of as hazardous waste due to contamination with dissolved adhesive). This results in the disposal of significantly less hazardous waste, and the elimination of manual power washing and scrubbing of tanks.

    Since the adhesive is not being dissolved, there is no need for a distillation process to reclaim the cleaning solution (as is the case with many traditional cleaning products). Distillation results in a reclaim rate of about 80 percent, compared to the 95 percent achieved with LokRelease 800 Adhesive Stripping Solution.

    Application Process of the Solution

    The application process simply involves: 

    Filling the tank with the LokRelease 800 solution, 

    Agitating the system, 

    Filtering out the chunks and 

    Disposing of solid waste.

    Important points to take note of:

    Thicker accumulations of adhesive coatings may require more time for removal. 

    Mechanical agitation will improve the rate of stripping. 

    When practical, heating of the cleaning solution with reflux can be beneficial. 

    The LokRelease 800 mixture can be reused once all solids are filtered out, simply add fresh solution to the mixture when necessary.

    Jonathan Gaber, Senior Production Engineer at Lord’s Saegertown facility, said, :

  “The product was developed to eliminate tank entry for cleaning purposes in our dispersion process vessels. After successfully completing a year without tank entry in the area, we expanded its use to other process areas and saved about $10,000 in material and $5,000 in labor annually for each of our 2,000 gallon reactors. We continue to expand its use in our plant to improve safety and reduce costs associated with vessel cleaning.”