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I have a lot of profile products with the logotype of the company handing them out printed on them. In some situations I don't like to show these logos. However, it is stupid to bin working products for this reason so I would like to remove the print on them.

What solvent can be used for this purpose? What solvent is used in this type of colours?

Currently there are two items I want to remove the printing from:

  1. A clear plastic bottle in BPA free tritan.

  2. A tool in, I think, aluminium (metal anyway) with a surface similar to a Macbook Pro.

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2 Answers 2

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Tritan is a co-polyester. It is prone to stress cracking in the presence of a number of common solvents - cyclohexanone and tetrahydrofuran are used as surface bonding agents.

Acetone can induce stress cracking, as can IPA.

I would suggest overprinting if you want to disguise the logo.

As for the aluminium item - take your choice - cyclo, THF, acetone, xylene - lots of options.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for your answer. Shouldn't the "ink" used on the tritan in itself contain a solvent that could be used to remove it? $\endgroup$
    – d-b
    Jan 2, 2020 at 8:57
  • $\begingroup$ It could, but the ink could also be solventless (UV cured) or very fast evaporating. The adhesion of the ink may even depend on the solvent surface etching the tritan. Depositing the ink limits the solvent exposure to the area covered by the ink. Removing the deposited ink will involve adding significantly more solvent over a larger area - and probably repeated washes with the solvent. $\endgroup$
    – Bruce Heath
    Jan 2, 2020 at 9:06
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I would suggest acetone for both - it's usually very effective for removing colours or inks of all kinds and I used to use it at work (in a lab - make sure you handle and dispose of it safely) to remove permanent marker.

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