Originally Posted by
Dave Mayer
The 'Green' product shows a composition of Hydrotreated light distillate (petroleum) 15.0-40.0% so the same stuff as the Regular product.
But this is what almost caused me to choke on my pulled-pork sandwich: "Additional Chemical Specific percentage of composition is being withheld as a trade secret." Ha ha. Given the top secret spec sheet, who knows what else is in the mix... Probably mostly water and perhaps some alcohols such as ethanol or methanol and some acids. Since these polar molecules are inherently poor solvents for non-polar molecules that make up oils and greases, the 'Green' product will be inferior to the the 'Regular' product.
Green products also contain a high percentage of virtue-signaling and smug eco-righteousness.
A material safety data sheet only has to list materials that have a safety hazard associated with them. Those hazards can be flammability or toxicity. If the materials being used aren’t flammable nor toxic, they don’t have to be listed. For the “green” mineral spirits, the only toxic or flammable material is the petroleum distillate. If it had ethanol or methanol or an acid of some kind (although the latter wouldn’t do anything for helping mix the nonpolar mineral spirits with water), those would have to be listed. I suspect that the unlisted material is some kind of surfactant that is neither flammable nor hazardous and doesn’t have to be listed.
I would also say that the “greenness” of these mineral spirits is very much in question. Since it contains mineral spirits, at some point there could be enough water present to break the emulsion and cause the mineral spirits to separate. Mineral spirits aren’t easily degradable. You don’t want to go pouring the stuff down a sink any more then you’d pour regular mineral spirits down a sink.