Removal
These markers are generally used on hard, non-porous surfaces, because instead of staining they form a surface layer that can be removed by high pressure cleaning or paint thinners and organic solvents such as acetone (which is in nail polish remover), xylene, or toluene. Isopropyl alcohol and ethyl acetate are preferred cleaners when used indoors, as their fumes are much less hazardous than toluene and xylene, the main components of paint thinner, or longer-chain hydrocarbons found in mineral spirits. Other common non-polar solvents include benzene, turpentine and other terpenes (which constitute essential oils of many plants with strong scents), most ethers, chloroform and dichloromethane, hydrocarbon fuels, and diacetone alcohol, among many others. Note that most of these solvents are very flammable, and/or their concentrated vapors are harmful to health.
Most brands of "permanent" marker wipe off easily with acetone free nail polish remover, the kind containing ethyl acetate, a relatively non-toxic organic solvent.
Some markers are designed to be long lasting, for instance by having two inks, one specialized to resist solvents, and one specialized not to fade. These can be available in refillable form.
A permanent marker can also be removed by drawing over it with a dry erase marker on non-porous surfaces such as a whiteboard as dry erase markers also contain a non-polar solvent. Most dry-erase board cleaner solutions also contain effective organic solvents like 2-butoxyethanol which will do the job.
Read more about this topic: Permanent Marker
Famous quotes containing the word removal:
“Many a reformer perishes in his removal of rubbish,—and that makes the offensiveness of the class. They are partial; they are not equal to the work they pretend. They lose their way; in the assault on the kingdom of darkness, they expend all their energy on some accidental evil, and lose their sanity and power of benefit.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic by those, whom the masses adore as the interpreters of nature and the gods. Such persons know that, with the removal of ignorance, the wonder which forms their only available means for proving and preserving their authority would vanish also.”
—Baruch (Benedict)
“If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)