Attribute Schema Library
Attribute schemajan-san

Disinfectants Attributes

Disinfectants are EPA-registered antimicrobial pesticides sold through jan-san distribution into healthcare, education, foodservice, hospitality and building service contractors. Every SKU is a regulated product before it is a chemical: it carries an EPA registration number, a master label, and a set of kill claims backed by submitted efficacy data.

That is what makes the data hard. The specs buyers filter on are not in the supplier's spreadsheet — they are in the master label PDF, where contact time is stated per organism, per dilution, per surface type. One product can carry five different contact times. Suppliers send one.

The rest is drift. The same formulation ships under a primary registration and under two or three supplemental distributor registrations with different brand names. Dilution arrives as 1:64 from one vendor and 2 oz/gal from the next. EPA's efficacy lists get republished and products move on and off them. Registration is per state: a SKU live in Ohio may not be registered in California.

Core

Every SKU needs these. Without them the record is not a product, it is a row.

Antimicrobial Product Type
enum
Disinfectant Cleaner (One-Step)

Sanitizer, disinfectant and hospital disinfectant are different EPA claims with different efficacy bars. Buyers spec one and cannot substitute another.

Formulation Type
enum
Ready-To-Use

Determines labor model and dispensing. A wipe, a dilutable concentrate and an RTU quart are not substitutes even at identical chemistry.

Active Ingredient
enum
Hydrogen peroxide

Drives surface compatibility, odor, PPE and residue. Facilities ban whole classes: bleach out of kitchens, phenolics out of nurseries.

Active Ingredient Concentration
number · % w/w
0.5

Same active at different strength is a different product. 0.5% AHP is an RTU; 4.25% is a dilutable that makes the same use-solution.

EPA Registration Number
identifier
70627-56

The join key to the master label, the efficacy lists and state registration. Without it no claim on the page can be verified.

Contact Time (Dwell Time)
number · minutes
1

How long the surface must stay visibly wet. Drives labor and whether the product survives a real cleaning round. Buyers sort ascending.

Dilution Ratio
text
1:64 (2 fl oz/gal)

Sets cost-in-use and dispenser setup. A 1:256 super-concentrate and a 1:64 quat are priced per case but bought per gallon of solution.

Container Size (Net Contents)
number · fl oz
32

Drives freight class, dispenser fit and shelf slotting. A 32 oz trigger, 1 gal jug and 2.5 gal closed-loop cartridge are separate SKUs.

Manufacturer Part Number (MPN)
identifier
4277285

The supplier's key for price files, cross-references and contract loads. Every substitution conversation starts with a competitor's MPN.

Differentiating

What buyers actually compare on. This is where catalogs win or lose the filter.

Kill Claim List (Labeled Organisms)
text
SARS-CoV-2; MRSA; Norovirus; Influenza A; Candida auris

Buyers arrive with an organism, not a brand. Infection control specs name C. diff, norovirus or TB and the answer must be on the record.

Approved Surface Types
enum
Hard Nonporous (HN); Food Contact, No Rinse (FCNR)

EPA vocabulary: hard nonporous, porous, food contact rinse required, food contact no rinse. Foodservice buyers filter on no-rinse first.

One-Step Cleaner-Disinfectant
boolean
TRUE

A disinfectant-only product needs a separate pre-clean step. That doubles labor on a route and gets the SKU dropped after the first quarter.

pH (As Used)
number · pH
2.5

Predicts damage. Hypochlorite at pH 12 pits stainless; AHP at pH 2.5 etches natural stone. Buyers with terrazzo or quartz filter on it.

Yield at Use Dilution
number · gal use-solution per case
128

The only fair basis for comparing a concentrate to an RTU. Without it a concentrate looks expensive next to a gallon of pre-mixed.

Compliance & identifiers

Standards, regulatory data, and the identifiers channels reject you for missing.

EPA Efficacy List Membership
enum
List B; List G; List N

Institutional specs cite lists by letter: B (TB), G (norovirus), H (MRSA/VRE), K (C. diff), N (SARS-CoV-2), Q (emerging viral pathogens).

NSF Nonfood Compound Category
enum
D2

D2 means no potable rinse on food contact surfaces; D1 always requires a rinse. Food plants and kitchens will not buy without the code.

GTIN / UPC
identifier
10012345678905 (GTIN-14, case)

Required by Amazon Business, GDSN and every hospital item master. Case and each need distinct GTINs or the hierarchy is rejected.

Country of Origin
enum
United States

Required for customs, GDSN and public-sector bids with domestic preference language. Missing COO blocks government contract loads.

The fields that aren't in the schema at all

What most disinfectants catalogs are missing.

The table above is the schema most catalogs already have. These are the attributes that usually aren't in it — each one surfaced by a signal from the live market rather than by an audit of what's already there. This is what Anglera's Schema Foundry does on a real catalog, in this category.

Competitor signal
+ Contact Time by Organism (kill-claim matrix)

EPA's List N tool lets buyers filter contact time against a named pathogen. Distributor catalogs carry one contact-time number or none — the per-organism times stay locked in the label PDF.

A 1-minute bactericidal claim gets quoted against a C. diff spec needing 5 minutes. The product is re-specced after the wall is stocked and the line is dropped.

Search signal
+ Yield at Use Dilution (cost-in-use)

Buyers search for gallons-per-case at 1:64 and cost per ready-to-use gallon, and land on generic dilution charts instead of product pages. The field does not exist on the record.

Concentrates lose head-to-head against RTUs on shelf price because cost per use-gallon is never shown. The higher-margin SKU stays on the shelf.

Supplier signal
+ State Pesticide Registration Status

Every disinfectant needs state registration on top of its EPA number, and California DPR and New York DEC clear a narrower set. No catalog carries a per-state eligibility field.

An order ships into a state where the product is not registered. Chargeback, cancelled PO, and a compliance finding against the distributor.

Marketplace signal
+ Dilution Control System Compatibility

Marketplace listings bury the dispenser system in the title — '... for J-Fill'. There is no dispenser facet, so buyers standardized on a wall search by title text and guess.

Buyer on a J-Fill wall cannot isolate compatible cartridges, orders a jug that will not seat in the dispenser, and returns it as a hazmat return.

Review signal
+ Wipe / Textile Substrate Compatibility

End users report test strips reading below minimum effective concentration; the cause is quat binding to cotton and microfiber. No catalog carries a substrate-compatibility field.

A quat concentrate gets paired with the microfiber program on one order. Solution strength drops below label and surfaces as an audit finding.

How Schema Foundry finds these

Messy in, governed out.

The same value, spelled every way jan-san suppliers spell it. A filter only works once they agree.

Dilution Ratio
1:642 oz/gal2 fl. oz. per gallon0.5 oz/qt1 to 642oz/GAL
1:64 (2 fl oz/gal)

Ratio and ounces-per-gallon are the same fact in two units. Ungoverned, a filter for 1:64 misses half the concentrates that qualify.

Contact Time
1 minute60 seconds1 min.10 sec0.17One (1) minute
1 min

EPA states contact time in minutes including fractions (0.17 = 10 sec). Mixed units break numeric sort and any range filter.

Active Ingredient
QuatQuaternary ammoniumADBACDDACAlkyl dimethyl benzyl ACQuaternary Ammonium Cmpd
Quaternary ammonium

Suppliers ship the CAS-level name off the label; buyers filter on the class. Carry both, mapped, or the facet fragments into singletons.

Formulation Type
RTUReady to UseReady-to-use (RTU)Pre-mixedPremixedReady To Use
Ready-To-Use

EPA List N vocabulary is Dilutable / Ready-To-Use / Wipe / Solid. Align to it and the catalog reconciles against EPA data for free.

What buyers ask

Every one of these should be answerable from the attributes above. If it isn't, that's a gap.

  • What's the contact time against C. diff spores, not just against bacteria?
  • Is this a one-step cleaner-disinfectant, or do I have to pre-clean first?
  • Can I use it on food contact surfaces without a potable water rinse?
  • How many ready-to-use gallons does one case make at 1:64?
  • Is it on EPA List N and List K?
  • Will the pH etch our stainless steel or natural stone?
  • Is this a hospital-grade disinfectant or just a sanitizer?
  • What's the EPA registration number so I can pull the master label?

What channels require

The same SKU, different mandatory fields per destination.

Amazon Business
GTIN/UPCBrandMPNSafety Data Sheet (dangerous goods)GHS signal word and pictogramsCountry of Origin
GS1 US / GDSN (1WorldSync)
GTIN-14 case hierarchyGPC brick codeNet content and unit of measureCountry of OriginGHS hazard classificationBrand owner GLN
Healthcare GPO / IDN item load (Vizient, Premier)
GTINUNSPSC codeEPA Registration NumberKill claim list with contact timesSafety Data SheetUnit of measure hierarchy
Distributor's own site filter rail
Active IngredientFormulation TypeContact TimeApproved Surface TypesDilution RatioEPA Registration Number

Disinfectants data, in practice

What's the difference between a sanitizer and a disinfectant on the label?

EPA registers them against different efficacy bars. A sanitizer must show a 99.9% reduction of specific bacteria on the test surface. A disinfectant must kill the organisms named on its label, and each claim carries its own contact time. "Hospital disinfectant" is a further claim: the product must be efficacious against Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enterica and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These are not interchangeable on a spec — a foodservice sanitizer cannot answer a healthcare disinfection requirement. Modeling all three under one "Disinfectant" node collapses a distinction buyers filter on before they look at price.

Why do two SKUs from different brands have the same EPA registration number?

Because one is a supplemental distributor product. A two-part registration number (70627-56) is a primary registration. A three-part number (70627-56-1234) is the same formulation sold under a distributor's own brand, where the third segment is that distributor's EPA company number. Same master label, same actives, same contact times, different name and price. Catalogs that store the registration number as free text — or truncate it to two parts — cannot detect that they are listing the same chemistry three times, and cannot inherit verified efficacy data across the family.

Does a Green Seal certification mean a disinfectant is safer?

Green Seal GS-37 covers cleaning products for industrial and institutional use, not disinfectants. EPA's Safer Choice program does not certify disinfectants either. The EPA program that does is Design for the Environment (DfE); EcoLogo also certifies in this space. So "Green Seal certified" sitting on a disinfectant record is usually either a claim inherited from a companion cleaner or a mis-mapped attribute. If a customer's green-cleaning specification calls for a certified disinfectant, DfE is the field that answers it, and it needs to be its own boolean rather than a line in a certifications free-text blob.

Should contact time be one field or many?

Many. EPA labels state contact time per organism: a product can be 1 minute for bacteria and enveloped viruses, 3 minutes for tuberculosis, and 4-5 minutes for C. difficile spores — often at different dilutions and on different surface types. A single "contact time" column forces a bad choice: publish the shortest and mislead an infection-control buyer, or publish the longest and lose every filter where a faster product wins. The correct model is a claim matrix — organism, contact time, dilution, surface type, EPA list. Wide-format PIMs handle this as a repeating group; flat schemas need a separate claims entity keyed on EPA registration number.

More jan-san schemas

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