Why hand sanitizers can be bad for car interiors

HAND sanitizers, as well as sunscreen lotions and insect repellents, are good for the health but are bad for car cabins.

Ford of Europe’s Dunton Technical Center said chemicals found in some of these products can react with surfaces touched by people in cars’ interiors, causing these to wear prematurely unless these are protected by special finishes.

To address this, the company said it continuously tests new products on the materials that are used in Ford vehicles and support the development of resistant coatings that can ensure these look good for years to come.

According to the technical center, hand sanitizers in gel, foam and wipes forms usually contain ethanol; higher SPF lotions contain more titanium oxide; and Diethyltoluamide, or DEET, is the most common active ingredient in insect repellents. All this can react with plastics, as well as natural oils found in leather.

“From hand sanitizers to sun lotions to insect repellent, consumer trends are constantly changing, and new products are coming on to the market all the time,” said Mark Montgomery, senior materials engineer at the Materials Technology Center, Dunton Technical Center UK for Ford of Europe. “Even the most innocuous-seeming product can cause problems when they come into contact with surfaces hundreds and even thousands of times a year.”

Research teams in Dunton and Cologne, Germany, test at temperatures that in some cases can reach 74 degrees Celsius or simulate extended exposure to the sun, as well as test plastics for strength at temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. Based on the findings, the chemical constitution of protective coatings can then be reformulated so that interiors are protected. Tests are also applied on storage accessories such as trunk liners and interior plastic covers.

“Sometimes what we do requires a bit of detective work,” said Richard Kyle, materials engineer who is also based in Dunton. “There were instances of particularly high wear in Turkey and we managed to trace it back to ethanol potentially being a contributing factor, and most likely a popular hand sanitizer that contained 80% ethanol — far higher than anything we’d seen before. Once we knew what it was, we were able to do something about it.”