Ack, Mold! What's Safe For Treatment?

[Flounder]

So, it's finally happened; one of my FPs has sprouted a little mold at the nib. It's my Orium Major no.100 - sorry if anyone's read my review, you might want to go and get yourself checked out.

 

What can I use to kill the mold? I have fire.

[Ron Z]

Shaklee Basic G A very good product that we use to decontaminate pens when they have mold and such in them.

[mhosea]

Shaklee products may be thin on the ground in Scotland. You're no doubt as capable as I am of finding the label online, but here it is in hopes of finding an equivalent product:

 

http://assets-origin.shaklee.com/publish/content/dam/shakleemedia/products/new_products_us/product_labels/00525_NA167A_info_front.png

Edited November 10, 2015 by mhosea

[FOUR X FOUR]

Shaklee, that takes me back.

[pajaro]

Lysol?

[mhosea]

Lysol?

Just looked at a Lysol MSDS sheet, which listed ethanol, isopropanol, and coconut oil, among other things. Doesn't seem like the right thing to use.

 

How about white vinegar?

Edited November 10, 2015 by mhosea

[pajaro]

Just looked at a Lysol MSDS sheet, which listed ethanol, isopropanol, and coconut oil, among other things. Doesn't seem like the right thing to use.

 

How about white vinegar?

 

Lysol is something I use commonly and is in my comfort zone. Shaklee brings back memories of Amway, and a friend taking me all through his house and showing me all the stuff he and his wife bought, trying to convert me to being part of Amway. Opened up dresser drawers, showed all the pantyhose and stuff his wife bought, lots of stuff I never wanted to know. No Shaklee.

 

White vinegar, acetic acid? Might be fine.

 

Frankly I have used Lysol Bathroom and Tile foaming cleaner and the similar product from Scrubbing Bubbles on every used pen I have ever bought. Damage to the pen is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the priority list to me compared with spread of germs. Averting harm to personnel is far more important than damage to equipment. Learned that in the Air Force's ICBM fields. Pen fanatacism does not outweigh it.

[Flounder]

Thanks everyone. I will try to find something close to the same active ingredients, I can't say I've ehard of this stuff before (catchy name!). Do you reckon I should discard the sac and fit a new one, or will the biocide get in there and show who's boss?

 

edit - I will investigate the 'natural' path too, reading around sounds just the thing to keep the shower sparkling! Diluted white vinegar + a few drops of tea tree oil!

Edited November 10, 2015 by Flounder

[mhosea]

Thanks everyone. I will try to find something close to the same active ingredients,

 

I think your challenge is to find something with quaternary ammonium salts, but no ethanol or isopropanol, that you can buy less than a gallon at a time. Ironically, "Scrubbing Bubbles" is such a choice in the US, but I don't think that particular product is available in the UK, either, and some other foaming cleaners do have ethanol in them. Just have to read labels until you find it, I guess.

Edited November 11, 2015 by mhosea

[Kelly G]

I would recommend replacing the sac - a cheap bit of insurance.

[Brianm_14]

There are concentrates of quaternary ammonium compounds (quats) available for several uses, without all the other gunk such as perfume or alcohols.

 

Quats are used as a bacteriostatic agent in (de)humidifiers. Or to add to the water in waterbeds. They may carried in feed stores to clean areas in dairying. Or check online. Should be cheap. Make a dilution to give you 0.15%, or follow the bottle directions, but be sure to clean the pens thoroughly first. Lab tests show we can remove 99.999% of microorganisms -or more- by cleaning and rinsing. Repeat. Note if you use a quat, it has detergent properties. If you use another soap or detergent first, be sure remove all residue, as these agents are incompatible with quats.

 

Some hand soaps now contain a quat ( benzalkonium chloride in Dial liquid soap in at least the USA) in a reformulation to get rids of triclosan, the previously employed germicide. Not free of dyes and perfumes, but is a quat.

 

Also, you can use vinegar (1 part vinegar to four parts water, soak cleaned pen for at least 10 minutes, with 20 - 30 minutes preferred). With clear ammonia, dilute the ammonia (one part ammonia to about six parts water). Use vinegar a rinse, followed by ammonia, ad another rinse. It tends to be fairly effective on bacteria and fungi. But clean first!

 

Dry pens by shaking and using paper towels, and allow air dry overnight while covered by a paper towel.

[Flounder]

Thanks for all this everyone. It has proven a bit challenging as you say. I don't want to leave the pen as-is, so have been flushing with white wine vinegar (certain restrictions on ammonia here too, you can't buy pure ammonia, it has to be dilute). The bottle says it has "6% acidity", so I'm not sure if that's adequate.

 

One important question I really should ask - how long should a pen be quarantined until it can be considered safe to introduce to a common ink supply? say no mould reappears in 2 weeks, would that be enough to be considered 'cured'?

[Brianm_14]

Allow it to remain open, after thorough cleaning, protected against dust (with mold spores) but as dry as possible for several weeks. Paper towels generally very clean. A silica gel packet could help. Desiccation will help kill remaining spores. Don't allow the little buggers access to moisture and warmth, total darkness, or any contamination that could feed them. Show no mercy.

 

A local chemist might point you to (or make up) a water-based "quat" and indeed, chlorhexidine is in that family of chemicals.

 

A weak (under 1 - 2% by weight) solution of lye (sodium hydroxide) in water would be quite effective. The potassium version is used in one or more pen flushes. Here in the States it appears as an active ingredient in a "Mr Clean" product. It saponifies grease into soap, and also kill a wide spectrum of microbes.

 

Be sure to use fresh ink, perhaps of a standard but alternative brand. I am thinking less of it as contaminated, than of it as food.

 

Molds can be tough, due to spore forms, and I have fought them in pharmaceutical plants and even in water supplies. The key is (1) remove as many cells possible by the vastly under-rated process of repeated physical cleaning with a mild detergent with gentle scrubbing, and (2) nuke the rest chemically as best you can, by manipulating pH (vinegar, then ammonia or lye) and using chemical agents, then (3) desiccate any which remain. Then don't recontaminate.

 

Or use a stiff but short dose of gamma radiation as is employed to sterilize plastic, disposable medical supplies such as syringes.

Good luck, and let us know how you are doing.

Edited November 30, 2015 by Brianm_14

[Flounder]

To update on this issue, what with one thing and another, and then the holidays, the Orium seems to have completely recovered without much more than white wine vinegar and an ultrasonic cleaner:

 

About 7 days of swabbing the cap with the vinegar each evening, rinsing out, and driying.

Quite a few nights of leaving it nib down in a shotglass covering the nib & feed in vinegar.

About 7 days completely filling the pen with undiluted vinegar and leaving it uncapped overnight, then rinsing out.

3 ultrasonic cycles in the vinegar, filled with vinegar.

 

Rinsed, dried, and put aside for ages while other things occupied my mind!

 

The vinegar used was Morrisons own brand white wine vinegar labelled as 6% acidity (whatever that means... 6% by volume?) Quite a sweet smell (and taste!).

[Brianm_14]

Glad it worked out. Vinegar itself is actually a pretty decent sanitizer, and (as acetic acid) has been successfully used to help clean respiratory therapy equipment between patients. The combination is vinegar, USC, and drying should do the trick.

[Flounder]

Thanks for your help on this Brian and everyone else who answered - it's always mildly vexatious when you can't find the best stuff domestically!

[Flounder]

Just wanted to add this in case any other UK members ever need the info - the vinegar I used was this one, not the similar Morrisons own-label 'Italian White Wine vinegar' with no acidity info.

[praxim]

Regarding comments about Lysol in #6 and #7 above, I found on the Reckitt Benckiser web site descriptions of Lysol variants, some using hydrogen peroxide as their active ingredient, some benzalkonium chloride. I gather the latter is recommended? From its constituents Lysol I.C. seems very similar to Shaklee Basic G.

 

Is Hydrogen Peroxide more likely to damage typical pen materials (ebonite, plastics)?

 

What of a USC with dilute Phenol bath, given that is used as bactericide in an ink?

 

While we are on mould-killing agents, anyone tried or have knowledge of the efficacy and risks of monosodium persulphate for a pen bath? Borax?

[stephanos]

Good information, thank you.

I found mould on one of my pens and tried using bleach on it, without much success. It's been sitting isolated from everything else for a little while now, whilst I try and work out what to do.

Now I'll try the vinegar option. I have access to vinegar-essence (concentrated vinegar), which has an acidity rating (or whatever it is) of about 20%. I assume that a slightly more acidic vinegar won't harm the pen. Now that I know what to do, I'm looking forward to progress.

[Astronymus]

Always be carefull with isopropanol. It can desolve some plastics or weaken them by washing out the softener. Isopropanol is the death for acrylic glas for example. It is ok for polycarbonat as long as you don't soak it.