Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records

@lewm 

You are preaching to the choir, this what my book PACVR 3rd Ed states:

VIII.8.1.a Denatured Alcohol. Denatured alcohol that is purchased on-line or at a hardware store is generally ethanol (drinking alcohol) that has been denatured (made undrinkable) by generally adding methanol. However, methanol can be very toxic (absorbed through the skin) at higher concentrations. It’s important to read the label and/or the SDS. There are many grades of “denatured alcohol” and the methanol content can range from relatively safe 0.5% in reagent-grade to hazardous >25% in industrial grades.

VIII.8.1.c Methanol: Wood alcohol is methanol. Methanol can be very toxic; both through inhalation and skin absorption. Ingestion can be lethal or can result in blindness. Methanol vapors have an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH)allowable 8-hour exposure limit of 200 ppm. The reported odor threshold for methanol is between 100 and 1500 ppm.

Antinn, I was mainly countering Mijostyn’s inference that denatured alcohol is essentially harmless. According to wiki, in some cases DA MUST contain at least 10% methanol in order to be labeled as such. That’s bad for us humans, but other potential constituents of DA could also be bad for LPs, based on the wiki entry. Moreover, I would think that propanol, being more polar than ethanol and a little less volatile, would be at least a bit better for the job of solvent than even unadulterated ethanol.

@lewm 

Agreed, however, I an not sure wiki is correct - here is just one example of reagent 'denatured' alcohol contents (vwr.com) and methanol is just 5%.  However, this form of denatured alcohol \\TAHOE\APPS\MIRS\REPORTS\MSWRPTM.FRX (mscdirect.com) is just nasty.  But, if you or anyone else wish to dive deeper, there are legally two types of denatured alcohol - specially denatured alcoho (SDA) l and completely denatured alcohol (CDA) - TTBGov - Industrial Alcohol Denatured Alcohol and the variations in SDA alone should be enough eCFR :: Home to give one  pause let alone the CDA.  Take away - when it comes to denatured alcohol read the SDS.  Otherwise, as @lewm says and I agree  isopropyl alcohol (same a 2-propanol/ CAS # 67-63-0) is the solvent of choice if that is your preference - but know the risks (flammability and toxicity - do not ingest) and stay away from rubbing alcohol - that is another mine field - see the book Table VIII.  

I do not wish to delve deeper into denatured alcohol. I would steer clear of it for anything except mandatory use. And that does not include cleaning records. I think it is ill advised to go out and buy products of complex composition, when really what is needed to clean a record is only a fraction of what is in the solution, and one has to be concerned about what else is in the solution. In this case, we are talking about alcohol. First of all denatured alcohol is derived from ethanol, and I believe for reasons stated above that propanol is slightly superior for the job of cleaning a record. And on top of that you can acquire nearly 100% pure propanol  without going to the black market or a guy named Joe. But that’s just my opinion and I commend you for the tremendous effort you have made to codify the subject.

@lewm 

Your opinion wrt IPA being a superior solvent to ethanol is spot on with the science.  In the book, I did a basic Hansen Solubility Parameter analysis, and of the alcohols, IPA has the lowest Hildebrand solubility parameter - the lower the value essentially the more powerful the solvent.  The Hildebrand solubility parameter considers three parameters - the energy from dispersion forces between molecules; the energy from dipolar intermolecular force between molecules; and the energy from hydrogen bonds between molecules; and is calculated as the square root of the sum of the squares.  The book Chapter X addresses the details.

Otherwise, I suspect like you, I am no fan of solvents.  When I was with the Navy and was developing cleaning procedures for life support I had a three member medical board that reviewed every cleaning agent - the Senior Navy Toxicologist, the Senior Navy  Industrial Hygienist and the Senior Diving/Submarine Medical Officer (this represented the most critical application).   We also off-gassed every cleaning agent at NASA White Sands Test Facility labs so got a view into what was actually in the cleaning agents.  Over the many years I got quite an education on the hazards of solvents and 'other' hidden hazards even in some commercial water based cleaning agents.