General precautions

Take care not to damage knife edges, and don't transport grease and dirt (e.g. from bolt-holes) from the outside to the inside of the assembly. Clean polyethylene or unpowdered PVC gloves should be worn both as safety and contamination protection. More efficient cleaning results from doing small pieces in batches. Use new solvents for each piece or set of pieces. Handle parts with cleaned tweezers or tongs as much as is practicable. Large flanges or assemblies should be held by their outside surfaces only.

Cleaning procedures

The initial decision which has to be made is how dirty the pieces really are and whether you want to perform what I refer to informally as an ultimate clean or a routine clean. This difference can affect both the cost of the operation and the need for special solvent disposal procedures, with health and safety implications. For these reasons at least, it is strongly advisable to work closely with your laboratory manager, and to establish written procedures which are then followed carefully. An inexpensive routine clean with little or no disposal problems is described first, followed by an ultimate clean which is more expensive, and does have disposal implications.

Routine clean

1. (1) Prepare a solution of a standard laboratory cleaner in distilled water. Adjust the strength of the solution depending on how dirty the part is, and the type of contaminant. Heating the solution will decrease the necessary soak time, but don't exceed 95°C.

2. […]