Summary for mek substitute Discussion
MEK substitute is the core question here: Dave Reim asked for products or companies that could replace methyl ethyl ketone for paint booth cleanup, including pipes, equipment, and other items. Bill responded that there is no single universal substitute because the right remover depends on the paint and the substrate, and he suggested starting with the paint supplier. He listed several possible approaches: nonflammable solvents such as 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethylene, or methylene chloride, while noting their restrictions or carcinogenicity; flammable options like acetone, toluene, and butyl cellosolve; caustic strippers based on sodium hydroxide that chemically destroy paint; thermal methods such as furnace burn-off or molten salt baths; and abrasive blasting with walnut shell media or similar. He also warned that any route can create hazardous waste and should be checked with local regulators. A later commenter, Tim, mentioned sodium metasilicate pentahydrate and sodium carbonate as only partly effective for dropping paint out of water and asked for a system flush additive.
Q. Can anyone identify/reference products and companies that can substitute for MEK?
The application is our paint booth clean-up. We need to clean the pipes, equipment, and other items–and would like to eliminate the use of methyl ethyl ketone.
Dave Reim
– Columbus, Ohio
1996
A. I don’t do industrial painting for a living but have had experience through the years analyzing paints, as well as trying to strip them.
There are a number of ways to remove paint, depending upon what the paint is and what the paint is on.
Start with contacting the paint supplier and asking for answers. Some of the non-flammable solvents that would work the best are either restricted (1,1,1-trichloroethane) or carcinogenic (trichloroethylene, methylene chloride).
Others are flammable (acetone) or flammable AND carcinogenic (toluene), or flammable and otherwise toxic (butyl cellosolve).
There are the caustic type strippers based upon sodium hydroxide that don’t dissolve, but actually chemically destroy the paint (saponification).
You can burn off the paint in a furnace, or use a molten salt bath to do the same thing.
Finally, you can blast off the paint using walnut shell media
⇦ on
eBay or
Amazon [affil link]
or other media in a “sandblaster”.
Good luck. No matter what route you follow, you end up with a potentially hazardous waste. Be sure to check with your local regulatory agencies before trying to get rid of the final cleanup byproducts.
Bill Vins
microwave & cable assemblies – Mesa (what a place-a), Arizona
(1996)
Thanks, Bill —
That was a terrific response, both in its technical quality and in its implication that every possible approach has environmental and safety consequences.
Society today understandably wants to quickly address the downsides of using certain materials, but we are often unprepared both scientifically and philosophically to weigh the downsides of the substitute to determine whether it will improve things or make things worse 🙂
Is air pollution worse than water pollution . . . is land pollution worse than pollution of the ocean .
. . is a skin rash on two workers out of fifty worse or not as bad as 10 trout killed out of forty?
Hi Dave,
Bill has given us an excellent list of potential substitutes for MEK, and their characteristics — but I’m sure you already see the difficulty of objectively saying which, if any, are “better” than MEK. I wish you well; it’s a very tough job!
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com – Pine Beach, New Jersey
Need quick confidential answers? $25
Need project assistance? $100/hr.
January 9, 2014
A. We paint industrial coatings in a booth everyday and can understand your concerns. We’ve recently found that dry ice blasting is the best way to clean the booth, track, chains, pipes and lines.
It is safe with no blast media clean up as the dry ice evaporates on contact and does not create rust issues. The only clean up you have is the paint residue on the floor of your booth after blasting.
There was a recent episode of dry ice blasting on Modern Marvels. Check it out …
After using it in our paint system we are sold on it.
Ron Covelli
– Schofield, Wisconsin, USA
What additive to clean up uncured UV lacquer in water booth
Q. Hello,
We have just started to paint with UV Lacquer, and the uncured lacquer that the water booth catches is sticking to the sides of the pipes / water wall, and in the pump etc. In the past for single and 2 pack paint we used a powder that drops the paint out of the water (sodium metasilicate pentahydrate
[affil link] & sodium carbonate
⇦ on
eBay or
Amazon]
anhydrous ) but this only partly works.
Can someone please recommend an agent to drop the paint out of the water and also a chemical additive to flush the system and remove all the coating stuck to the system?
Thank you
Tim
Tim Dash
painting shop – Tim Dash
May 29, 2014