OK gang,
I've reread the thread and will do my best to help calm some of the queasiness that people are having with regards to cleaning formulas, in particular enzymes and Paul's cleaning chemistry.
First, I have been a formulating chemist in the detergent industry for a little over 10 years. I currently formulate water-based and solvent-based cleaners primarily for the aerospace industry. The raw materials I use are very diverse and I have worked with just about every one that I've seen pop-up in do-it-yourself record cleaning formulas as well as the various U.S. Patents and current vendors. I do not formulate with enzymes but I have taken several courses in Biochemistry in undergrad and grad school so I have a very good understanding of how they work (and more importantly in this case, don't work). My boss, the laboratory technical director, used to work for DeSoto up in Chicago for 17 years. DeSoto has been the supplier of the Sears brand of laundry detergents for > 30 years so he had plenty of experience in formulating with enzymes. We discuss enzymes fairly regularly and he doesn't see a problem with what Paul has whipped-up for the enzyme formula.
I met Paul Frumkin when I purchased the MFSL pressing of Traffic: Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys from him in an Ebay auction. We started exchanging e-mails and found out that we lived only ~ 2 miles apart from each other a long time ago; age difference is the reason we never met back then. Paul started telling me about the record cleaning machine and he had already done something like 2-years work on the detergent wash solution. I mentioned my chemistry backround and we were off to the races on discussions of what one should and shouldn't use, how much to use, wiping-off vs. vacuuming, water purity, etc. We initially were going try a serious concerted effort together on producing a product but I found out the hard way that the combination of being a single, new home owner and my current employment demands made it impossible for me to proceed at a satisfactory pace. I still kept in contact with Paul and we eventually got onto the subject of enzymes. I did take the position that it would be best to use a two-step formula; we were both concerned about potential residue issues if there wasn't a follow-up basic cleaning step. We both agreed that vacuum cleaning is the only way to properly clean a record. The intention of the two-step method is to first break-up the protein soils with the enzyme and then vacuum the remains off. Now there will still can be some protein residue but it has been chopped-up into smaller pieces by the enzyme. Do a follow-up cleaning with the wash solution and that should take care of the remains and other soils. Finally, vacuum off the wash solution. If you wish to be more certain of removing cleaner residue, then follow-up with a high purity water rinse and vacuum that off. I made suggestions to Paul on what ingredients would make good candidates for wash and enzyme cleaners and he did use some of this advice in the development process. I never asked for nor will I ask for any finacial compensation for my help. I just enjoyed being able to help out. That is where we stand today.
Probably the funniest aspect of record cleaning is the fact that I've been formulating cleaners for > 10 years but only really thought about record cleaning formulas when I met Paul. I just ignorantly plodded along using Disc Doctor brushes and formulas without ever asking the question "Isn't there a better formula and/or method".
Now, let's first cover what an enzyme is and what it can do and can't do. As pointed out previously, enzymes are catalysts that participate in chemical reactions but they do not get consumed in the reaction. Enzymes can come from plants and animals as well as they can be produced by natural or genetically engineered microbes (Bacillus strains are probably the most common source for industrial production of enzymes that are used in aqueous cleaners).
An enzyme contains one or more relatively large flat ring structures which is called a Porphyrin ring. A metal ion is anchored in the center of this ring; could be iron, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, etc. Protein strands are attached at the outer edges of the porphyrin ring and they may be connected to other porphyrin rings or they may hang loose. Protein strands are polymers of amino acids. The key to enzyme function is the type of metal in the ring, the exact ring structure, the number of ring structures, and the amino acid composition of the protein strands and their length. All these factors control the type of chemical reaction that the enzyme can catalyze.
So what reactions can an enzyme catalyze? Enzymes are defined by the categories of chemical reactions they make possible. Some of these categories are:
Oxoreductases - catalyzes the transfer of electrons from one molecule to another.
Transferases - these transfer groups of atoms from one molecule to another.
Lyases - these add groups of atoms to double bonds (unsaturated sites) or can remove groups to form double bonds.
Isomerases - these transfer atoms or groups of atoms from one site to another within the same molecule. The number and types of atoms in the overall molecule doesn't change, just the location.
Ligases - these join molecules together through covalent bonds.
and the category we are most interested in is:
Hydrolases - these catalyze the reaction between a molecule and water (water gets bound to the molecule).
For cleaning purposes, hydrolases are perfect because there is plenty of water around in the cleaner solution and there are plenty of hydrolase enzymes that take big molecules and force them to react with water in ways that chop the big molecule up into smaller pieces.
But not so fast! There are subcategories of Hydrolases that we must look into because we could screw up a record if we don't.
Subcategories of the Hydrolase Enzyme Family are:
Amylases - these specifically attack starch molecules and chop them up.
Cellulases - these attack cellulose and cellulose derivatives and chop them up.
Lipases - these attack phospholipid derivatives of fats and chop them up.
and our best friend for record cleaning:
Proteases - these attack proteins and chop them up.
Now here is the deal on protease enzymes; they are extremely specific in their design as to what they can chop up and what they can't. A protease cannot chop-up an animal fat, fatty plasticiser, PVC, PVC acetate, Carbon Black, Styrene polymers, waxes, and fatty soaps because they are not made of amino acids. The protease will only chop-up proteins and I have never heard or read (i.e. US Patents) of proteins being used in record compositions.
It must also be pointed out that enzymes are not living organisms. Enzymes are just catalysts that are created by living organisms to make the chemical reactions possible that are needed for the organisms to live. Hemoglobin is an enzyme but it is not a living cell. If enzymes truly are not alive, why does rubbing alcohol deactivate them? The protein chains and porphyrin centers of the enzyme are designed to fold into a specific pattern. This pattern is necessary to bring the other chemicals together so that the metal center can get the reaction to occur. The critical folding pattern only occurs in a specific solvent (in our case, water) in a certain pH range, and in a specific temperature range. If you change the solvent, pH, or temperature range, the folding pattern of the enzyme changes which turns it's catalytic activity off. This process of disrupting the folding pattern is called "denaturing" or "denaturation".
I think this should help make it clear that enzymes are great agents but they are very limited in what they do because that is the way they were programmed to work.
Now let's get to the point. Paul's enzyme solution contains a protease inhibitor, not any other type/class of enzyme. I discussed revealing this to the audience with Paul before posting here. Paul said it was OK.
Why didn't Paul say this before? Because the manufacturer of the raw material was not willing to reveal the exact class of enzyme. The manufacturer did tell Paul that the enzyme concentrate would do what he was looking for but they played the trade secret/confidential informaton angle to avoid saying anything beyond enzyme. I understand how this can happen because manufacturers are trying to protect their business turf but it is ludicrous to not say that the enzyme is a protease. There are tons of variations on how proteases can be designed to work such as making them extremely selective on where they chop-up a protein. We don't need to know the exact design of the enzyme, just the class to be sure that we aren't putting the wrong enzyme on a vinyl record. Paul proceeded to formulate and he tested the solutions using 30 minute soak times once a day, playing the record each day, and repeating daily for 6 weeks on a couple different records. That's 42 plays and 21 hours of enzyme exposure per record. Paul said he heard no audible degradation in sound on playback. That's good enough for me.
When the questions still kept coming up that basically had the read between the lines emphasis of "Sorry, I just can't believe you until you tell me what's in the cleaner or prove with some sort of sophisticated independent laboratory test", Paul asked me if I might have a way of tying down the classification of the enzyme. He provided me with the manufacturer and product name and I did some literature searching plus calling a couple contacts who have been in this industry a lot longer than me and I managed to obtain what I feel is multiple source confirmation (two US Patents being part of it). Sure, verbal anectdotes are not lab instrumentation confirmation but I have managed to meet people who were former employees at certain places who were able to give me the "lowdown" without truly compromising a trade secret. Remember, if it is also published in a US Patent, then it is public knowledge. The multipoint confirmation was reached earlier this week.
It's not economically viable for Paul to track down some independent laboratory and figure out what kind of test(s) will satisfy some of the questions posted. I seriously doubt that Paul is making any money at all at his current price points when you factor in the cost of the water purifier, chemical raw materials, packaging, shipping & handling, customer support, and all the labor in between. I personally advised him not to bother with sophisticated independent laboratory testing unless he is willing spend a boatload of money.
As to the other ingredients. Well, we know Paul is using ultra-high purity water because he said he is already doing this. The general wash solution does contain Isopropyl Alcohol but we are not talking an overwhelming slug of it here. I will not reveal what the other ingredients are but will at least say that I have worked with nearly all these ingredients and have no concerns whatsoever about their use in cleaning vinyl. The listening test is good enough for me. These surfactants have been around for > 50 years; if there was a problem with leaching of plasticizers from plastic substrates, we would know about it because there are tons of applications where other polymer surfaces see a hell of a lot more exposure than your record ever will. If there was a problem, there would be numerous complaints about problems like dulling of finishes and stress crazing and softening or hardening, etc.
Is leaching of a plasticizer important? I can't really give a definitive yes or no on this issue because I have never seen a technical paper that truly spelled this out. If there is a technical paper out there, somebody please give a reference so that I can read it. I have read a ton of U.S. Patents and none of them ever discussed the need for plasticizers to increase the longevity of playback. The plasticizer's function is to lower the melt viscosity of the vinyl composition which reduces the internal friction of the mixture when it is pressed in the mold. The improved moldability allows the grooves to fill completely while using less pressing force. I'm not saying that plasticizers don't assist in longevity during playback, I just haven't seen any such claim except the conjecture given in various internet forums. Some of the U.S. Patents do discuss adding "lubricity agents" to enhance playback life such as metal salts of stearic acid (as in LEAD and BARIUM salts!), synthetic microcrytalline waxes, and carnauba wax. The lead factor makes one wonder if they should play the records at all (actually extremely low content). The plasticizers also have some mold-release properties.
Can cleaners leach plasticizers? I have no doubt that they can and do but we are talking about what is available only right at the surface. These cleaners do not bore down several molecules deep and dig everything out of the base plastic; it takes an organic solvent that you would never consider using to clean a record to do that level of leaching. Many people are expressing fears of plastisizer leaching damage and I simply do not believe it is warrented here even though Paul and I cannot produce expensive independent laboratory studies to prove it to you. I've read the dissertation by the formulator of RLL Record Cleaners over at the Musical Surroundings website and guess what? I am just as familiar with those raw materials and I know they are safe too from 10 years of experience.
Brushes. It does seem reasonable to use separate brushes with respect to the enzyme cleaner vs. the general wash solution. Using separate brushes may provide only very low marginal improvement but brushes are cheap and if you feel more comfortable with doing this, I'll buy that for a dollar. Stick with nylon brushes. Don't use brushes made out of horse hair as there are proteins and maybe even greases present. Use carbon fiber brushes only for dust particulate removal; their too soft to be effective at scrubbing-out soils.
My best recommendation for making records last as long as possible has two possible answers:
1. Clean the record very thoroughly with an enzyme solution followed by a general detergent wash solution and it can't hurt to do a high purity water rinse. Do all this with a vacuum record cleaning machine. Then, treat the record with LAST Record Preservative. The developers of LAST clearly have proven with documented lab tests that this works. How did they manage to do documented tests? Well, Marion Fulk is one of the owners of the patent and guess what? He was a scientist at Lawrence Livermore Labs as part of the Nuclear Weapons Industry so he had direct access to their high powered microscopes with photographic capabilities AT NO CHARGE. There are some that have said that LAST altered the sound of their album and they didn't like it. Well if you also are constantly worring about leaching effects of cleaners but won't use LAST either, the other option is
2. Don't play the records at all. Get out of the hobby of playing them. Sell the turntable. Keep the record if you like the cover artwork or if some of them actually have monetary investment value. Then, sell the rest of the albums.
Vinyl recordings are precious but they are not perfect and cannot be made to last forever.
I hope the "long-winded" dissertation helped some. I'm pooped. It's time to go to bed.
Mr. Kidknow
