How to Select a Suitable Disinfectant Cleaner?
With a multitude of Surface Disinfectant Cleaner options available in the market, it is a challenging task just to select the right product for one’s needs.
Do you
buy a Disinfectant Cleaner or a plain Disinfectant?
Should
you buy a Disinfectant Concentrate or a Ready to Use (RTU) pre-diluted variant?
What is
better - a Trigger Spray or a pre-wetted Disinfectant Wipe?
What is
better value for money - Aerosol Spray or No Gas Trigger Spray?
Each
decision can influence your user experience to a great degree. So, how do you
select the most suitable product for our needs? Before we get to that, a few
things to remember:
Hand
Sanitizer is NOT an ideal Surface Disinfectant, and vice versa.
An
antiseptic solution may not be the broad-spectrum Disinfectant that you are
looking for
A cleaner
removes the germs, while a Disinfectant kills them
Let us
now consider each point that will help us choose the best option:
Disinfectant Cleaner or
plain Disinfectant?
This one
is easy. If you are only focused on disinfecting a surface and will clean it
separately using another product or process, you may buy a plain disinfectant.
However,
practically speaking, it is better to use a one-step Disinfectant Cleaner Solution.
It first kills the germs on a surface and then helps remove them. To be safe,
you can employ a two-step cleaning process, using the same product for both
steps.
Concentrate or Ready to Use
(RTU) solution?
While
there is no significant difference in efficacy of both, the difference lies in
the convenience and the characteristics:
Using a
Disinfectant Concentrate is recommended if:
The
amount of disinfectant used high. In such cases a Concentrate is more
economical.
You have
the time (or the help) to prepare the diluted solution. The dilution process
needs time & attention. If your usage is high it makes sense to buy a
Concentrated Solution. Else, you are better off buying a Ready to Use version.
You wish
to use the same solution for surfaces with differing germ load. You can
effectively combat different germ loads (or differing need for level of
disinfection) by changing the dilution of the concentrate. This is not possible
with the RTU. You cannot increase the concentration of a pre diluted solution.
Trigger Spray or a
pre-wetted Wipe?
This
choice is driven by 3 factors:
Convenience
There is
no doubt that the pre-wetted Disinfectant Wipes are more convenient to use than
a Trigger Spray. You do not need to keep additional fabric wipe or mop
available with you, while cleaning up. It is as simple as – wipe the surface
& wait for it to dry.
Cost
The
convenience of using the wipes comes at an additional cost. If you are buying
the wipes, make sure you buy the right pack size. Once opened, the wipes in the
pack are to be used within a defined period (otherwise they go dry). So, select
the pack size based on your consumption pattern.
Time
Available
If the
time available for achieving disinfection action is less, then wipes are
preferred over sprays. Pre-wetted wipes save time, which can be critical when
used in high traffic, high turnover situations like – hospitals, clinics,
stores, gymnasiums, salons etc.
Aerosol Spray or No Gas
Spray?
Again, it
is a decision based on convenience vs economy.
While an
aerosol spray is convenient to use & carry, it suffers from the problem of
low volume of disinfectant per pack. Each aerosol spray is filled with a
propellant gas that takes up more than 30% of the volume. So, obviously you
need to spray more liquid to achieve desired disinfection.
Trigger
sprays (with no gas), are mostly bulky. But then they last you for a long time
and cover more surfaces.
Indicative
Example: one Trigger Spray (500ml) is equivalent of 4-5 Standard Aerosol Spray
cans
So there,
this is a quick guide to the process of selection of the ideal surface
disinfectant for your needs.
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