Cleaning is the necessity of every home and commercial space. Today we have many products for cleaning. Nowadays, it is easy to find niche products which are useful for the specific purpose, for example, you may find metal cleaners, cleaners for tiles and marbles etc. Many people often use the same product for different purposes. But there is a wide range of cleaners available in the market that and each of the cleaning agents serves a different purpose. Cleaning with specific agents makes our work easy and keeps our products safe from losing shine and color.

Cleaner

We have divided these cleaners into the following categories: 

1. Abrasive cleaners
2. Non-abrasive cleaners 

Following are the types of these cleaners.

ABRASIVE CLEANERS

These cleaners are perfect for cleaning heavy amounts of oil and grease.  They are available in either liquid or powder form. They’re very effective in cleaning oil and grease which otherwise require hard rubbing. Scouring pads also come under in this category. The degree of abrasiveness varies in different products and over an extended period of time, the overuse of such cleaners can also remove the glaze or coating. If you are planning to use such a product on your expensive furniture you must check the user’s manual before doing so.

• Disinfectant cleaners: There are few cleaning agents that are helpful in disinfecting the surfaces. Such agents include an antimicrobial agent to reduce the bacteria’s that are living on soiled surfaces. Pine oil, quaternary ammonium compounds or sodium hypochlorite are examples of such products. They are labelled as “disinfectant” or “kills germs.”
• Powdered cleaners: These products have a long-established place among household cleaners. They can remove oil and grease often found in sinks after dishwashing. They also help in the removal of food, beverage, or mould because the bleaching agent is usually present in them. Removal of rust stains is the main feature of powder products.
• Liquid cleaners: They are the suspension of solid abrasive particles in a thickened liquid matrix and they contain more surfactant and softer abrasives. Therefore, their abrasive action is usually mild.
• Scouring pads: They are very common and have been used since ages for cleaning. It consists of a ball of fine steel wire is the most commonly used scouring pad. You can use them with other cleaning agents like soap or powders on metals. They are made of non-corroding materials as well as a mesh of copper, stainless steel wire or nylon. Others are made of plastic material embedded with small particles of abrasives.

Cleaner

NON-ABRASIVE CLEANERS 

These agents are available in different forms. If they are in powder form, they can be dissolved to the proper strength in liquid. Liquids can also be diluted or used full strength. You can also use liquids as trigger sprays, in aerosol cans or in pump-actuated bottles. They also contain antimicrobial agents to disinfect. They are used for cleaning floors, painted walls, countertops and woodwork. These are the areas where accumulations of soil are relatively uniform.

 Non-abrasive cleaners come in the form of:

• Powder: Mixing them with water and use it to clean surfaces like floors, painted walls, countertops and woodwork o clean the dust and oil. They may contain elements like such as ammonia, pine oil and organic solvents like ethanol or isopropanol.
• Liquid: Presence of surfactants is noticeable in the liquid form of non-abrasive liquid cleaning products because they generally are formulated to produce only a moderate amount of foam, which makes rinsing easier. They are very good for dishwashing.
• Spray: These are designed to use on smaller areas such as soiled walls, switch plates, chrome fixtures, appliances and cooktops. Sprays are formulated with surfactants and low levels of builders, and mostly they contain an organic solvent.

Conclusion

 There are wide verities of cleansing agents available in the market, make sure that you analyse the purpose of use before purchasing them.