Bicycles Asked on November 30, 2020
Thanks to COVID lockdowns, things are shut and I’m anyways miles away from larger market areas. What I do have is litres of sanitizer, the kind that is watery in consistency (not gel-like) and is intended to be sprayed (not squirted).
The composition of(v/v) is as follows :
It’s flammable and has tonnes of alcohol, basically a good sign as a solvent to dissolve oil and grease, from what I can remember from high school chemistry. Not to mention it also leaves the drivetrain smelling nice 😉
So, is it fine if I use it as usual degreaser (spray, rinse, lube) ?
Degreasers need to dissolve the oils in lubricants. I am not sure why this works from a chemistry perspective, but alcohols like the ones in sanitizer don't seem able to dissolve traditional chain lubricants as effectively as other degreasers, e.g. mineral spirits, turpentine, or citrus degreasers. Indeed, chain waxing proponents recommend that you degrease the chain's existing lubricant using mineral spirits, which are non-alcoholic hydrocarbons, and that you remove the residue of the mineral spirits (or other degreaser) from the chain with alcohol. I have never heard anyone recommend alcohols to remove chain lubricant. It seems that wet lubes are less soluble in alcohol than in the other degreasers mentioned. I am not familiar with chemistry research on how soluble lube is in various solvents, and any comments or answers on that topic would be welcome!
If you are using traditional wet lubricants, I don't think that removing the degreaser remnants with alcohol is needed. This is only needed if you are using paraffin wax. I'm only bringing wax up because this is how I'm familiar with what dissolves what.
NB: After this was posted and accepted as an answer, @llama explained why alcohols are a poor solvent for wet lubes from a chemistry perspective. If you upvoted this answer, please consider upvoting theirs also.
Correct answer by Weiwen Ng on November 30, 2020
I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Glycerol attracts and retains moisture (it’s used as a food additive to keep moist food moist).
Hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizer. I think both substances are going to accelerate rust and corrosion.
I’m just surprised there is no acid in it (which again would be bad for metal) to match the skin’s acidic PH value.
Answered by Michael on November 30, 2020
This might work, but probably not as well as using dish soap and water.
Because greases are made up of nonpolar chemicals, they are best dissolved by either nonpolar solvents or detergents. Nonpolar solvents are fluids made up of nonpolar molecules, which stick directly to the grease molecules they dissolve. This category includes things like acetone, petrol, and mineral spirits. These make good degreasers, especially if they're volatile enough that they will evaporate (otherwise you've just replaced one oily substance with another). WD-40 is in this category.
Polar solvents similarly stick to polar molecules or ions, so that's why you can use water to wash something covered in salt (where it dissociates into Na+ and Cl- ions in solution) but trying to do the same with acetone would be much less effective. This category includes water and alcohols.
Detergents (such as dishwashing liquid or laundry soap) contain chemicals with large molecules having a polar end and a nonpolar end: the polar end sticks to (polar) water molecules and the nonpolar end sticks to the grease molecules, allowing both detergent and grease to be washed away by water. This might be your best bet for common household chemicals, google shows quite a few people reporting good results for using it to clean bike chains.
EDIT: After prompting from gschenk I'm reminded that ethanol is actually a decent solvent for nonpolar molecules as well, due to basically having a polar end and a nonpolar end. Still, as a spray it will just slightly dilute grease. You might be able to use it by putting the chain in a container with it and shaking it around a lot, but you would have to do the same with a detergent, and the other additives in the sanitiser aren't going to do you any favours.
Answered by llama on November 30, 2020
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