Cleaning tips for your refractometer
Good cleaning guarantees exact and reproducible results. Here are some basic tips:
- Normally, it is sufficient to use a soft, preferably lint-free and absorbent cellulose cloth to clean the measuring prism.
First take up the sample with a cloth, then wipe with a moistened cloth. In most cases, water is a suitable solvent. For oily samples, ethanol or, depending on refractometer compatibility, acetone is recommended.
- Clean the measuring prism directly after each use. This will ensure that your sample does not dry or harden on the prism. Cleaning dried samples afterwards is all the more time-consuming.
Between measuring very different substances and samples, it is helpful to check the cleaning success by measuring water or another suitable reference.
- The sensitive component of every refractometer is the measuring prism, this is not alkali resistant. Therefore, please clean the measuring prism after measuring alkaline or aggressive samples and check the cleaning afterwards. By a fast measurement you also shorten the contact time.
- Sample and cleaning agent can be applied with disposable pipettes or micropipettes. For highly viscous samples, we recommend using a wooden spatula or pouring the sample directly into the measuring well (DR6x00).
- Avoid formation of gas bubbles, as these take part in the measurement and falsify a measurement result.
We have achieved our best cleaning results with the following cleaning agents:
Recommended Cleaning Agents
| Sample | Cleaning solution 1 | Cleaning solution 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Industry: Food, beverages and spirits | ||
| Fruit juice | Water | Ethanol |
| Soft drinks | Water | Ethanol |
| Sugar solutions, salt solutions, honey | Water | --------- |
| Beer, Wort | Water | Ethanol |
| Spirits, distillates | Water | --------- |
| Industry: chemistry, cosmetics, pharmaceutical industry | ||
| Flavors, fragrances, aftershave, perfume | Ethanol, Isopropanol | --------- |
| AdBlue | Water | --------- |
| Cleaning agents | Water | Ethanol |
| Ethylene glycol, propylene glycol | Water | Ethanol |
| Polyamides, polymers | Cresol | --------- |
| Paraffinic substances | Toluene | Xylene, Cleaning benzene |
| Turpentine-based wood preservatives | Cleaning benzene | Ethanol |
| Water-based wood preservatives | Water | Ethanol |
| Industry: Petrochemistry | ||
| Engine oil, lubricating oil | Cleaning benzene | Acetone |
| Mineral oils | Isopropanol | --------- |
| Fuel, diesel, kerosene and heating oil | Cleaning benzene, Petroleum ether | Acetone |
Automised cleaning
Automation gives you a lot more efficiency. The rinsing and drying of our semi-automatic and fully automatic refractometers is very effective. The cleaning liquid flows through the system at high speed and a lot of compressed air, flushing all impurities and sample residues out of the measuring chamber.
You can create any number of individual cleaning procedures using the user interface of the DR6000-TF models.