The power of pH

Clean­ing prod­ucts have dif­fer­ent clean­ing capa­bil­i­ties that will depend on their pur­pose. Regard­less of their spe­cif­ic capa­bil­i­ties, they are all affect­ed by pH.

pH is a scale that mea­sures the acid­i­ty or alka­lin­i­ty of a sub­stance when it is dis­solved in water. This scale ranges from 0 to 14. Pure water has a pH of 7 and is often referred to as being neu­tral. Acidic solu­tions have a pH less than 7 where­as alka­line solu­tions have a pH above 7. This is rel­e­vant when it comes to clean­ing as the dif­fer­ent pH val­ues will clean spe­cif­ic types of soils.

Neu­tral Clean­ers — The pH ranges from 6–8 and are gen­er­al­ly used for dai­ly clean­ing of sur­faces with light soil or small par­ti­cles.

Acidic Clean­ers — The pH is below 7 and it is used for clean­ing soils that have result­ed from min­er­al deposits. For exam­ple hard water expo­sure. These clean­ers can be used for clean­ing toi­let bowls, remov­ing soap scum, lime, and grease from sur­faces.

Alka­line Clean­ers —  The pH is above 7 and it is used for clean­ing soils that are oily or greasy. Heavy duty degreasers will often have a pH of 13–14. Gen­er­al pur­pose clean­ers have a pH between 9 and 11 to remove oils, par­tic­u­lates, fats, and oth­er pro­teins.

It is impor­tant to be aware of how the pH lev­el may affect par­tic­u­lar mate­ri­als. The high­er the pH lev­el is, the more cor­ro­sive the clean­ing agent is. This can lead to dam­age of mate­ri­als that may not be reversible. 

So just how much should clean­ers know about pH?

The clean­ing and restora­tion indus­try should know about pH meters and how to read charts. Elec­tron­ic pH meters are able to tell us what kind of prod­uct was last used to clean the car­pet. When speak­ing with a cus­tomer, they may not be hon­est or may even be unaware of the his­to­ry of the car­pets. This means that clean­ers can avoid tak­ing on the lia­bil­i­ties that are hid­den with­in the car­pets.

Being aware of the pH of a spot or stain can give the clean­er the upper hand in diag­nos­ing the source and removal pro­ce­dures. 

A pH meter also gives us the abil­i­ty to deter­mine if colour loss has been caused by chem­i­cals or the atmos­phere. Chem­i­cal residue will leave a dif­fer­ent pH com­pared to a non affect­ed area. There will be no con­trast in pH if the colour­loss has been caused by nat­ur­al occur­rences. 

Under­stand­ing pH and using a pH meter can elim­i­nate the risk of legal action due to pre­vi­ous clean­ing agents that have been used.