Talk:Sodium hypochlorite/Archive 2

Spills

It would be good for the article to include some suggestions about best ways to clean up spills of various sizes. And/or specific links to such info. It seems like water dilution would be helpful to clean up smaller amounts -- but with larger amounts, you would just have an ever-larger problem, of still-potent liquid? Are all types of plastic gloves appropriate protection, or are some vulnerable to being dissolved by the Sodium hypochlorite solution? 69.87.202.55 00:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, sodium thiosulfate (hypo) is an instant chlorine neutralizer, great for getting that chlorine odor off your hands. 1 teaspoon in a quart of water, kept in an old liquid soap pump, makes a good hand rinse. Richard J Kinch 06:57, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

We don't usually quote spillage control measures for the simple reason that most of them are identical: "large amounts of water"! TheInternational Chemical Safety Cards quoted in the article guard aginst using absorbants for bleach spills, probabaly because of the risk of forming small quntities of dioxin. Thiosulfate is only useful for very small splills. Physchim62 (talk) 12:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Slippery on skin

I spilled some 6% Clorox on my hands. Rinsed off immediately. But skin had a slippery feel, that was hard to wash off. What is happening?69.87.202.55 00:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

My guess- you're making soap from your skin oils. Bleach is alkaline, and the recipe for soap is fat/oil/etc + alkali. Good idea to wash it off.--Smokefoot 01:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Household blean contains lye (NaOH) as a stabilizer. This defats your tissues and turns you into human soap. Rinse for a few minutes, then apply a hand lotion. Richard J Kinch 06:57, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a common problem that I teach to my students. If you wash the bleach off quickly enough you shoud not have any further irritation. If you have irritation, see a medical practioner (although hand oil works quite well as well for very minor burns, which are by far the most common). Your medical practioner will almost certainly have experienced the same effect when he or she did basic Chemistry as part of their medical degree (medics are not known for being the most careful in a chemical laboratory!) The explanation is as given above: you have turned your skin oil into soap! Physchim62 (talk) 12:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Mechanism of action

I'm nearing completion of my edits of the hypochlorous acid article. I will be adding a discussion of the mechanism of action there. It is more comprehensive than the one contained here. The explanation presented here has since been shown to be in error, but I have however cleaned up the language and provided a reference to the article where the idea was originally proposed. I will not do anything further, and will leave it to the community to decide how to deal with it.James.folsom 21:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The mechanism of action was incorrect. Ask any chemistry teacher or professor, sodium hypochlorite, a soluble salt, completely dissociates in water. The hypochlorite anions react with water to produce a minuscule amount of hypochlorous acid and hydroxide anions. This is defined by the Kb equation for the hypochlorite anion. TheLiberalTruth 21:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I suspect they were confusing NaOCl, which is ionic and completely dissociates, with HOCl, which is a weak acid and therefore only partially dissociates. Thanks for fixing it. Walkerma 21:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The mechanism of action is still wrong, and the ratio of OCL to HOCl is pH dependent. With significant amounts of HOCl being produced at neutral and lower pH. Since this topic continues to degenerate into inaccuracy, I will remove it and provide a link to the more accurate information, provided there is no objection. James.folsom 21:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Hypochlorite or Hypochloride?

Are sodium hypochlorite and sodium hypochloride the same thing? I've seen both referred to as bleach. When I visited the American Chemical Society http://www.chemistry.org/, they have no listing for hypochloride, only hypochlorite. Is hypochloride a misnomer? BTW, they list the chemical formula for sodium hypochlorite as NaOCl, not NaClO. BCreegan10:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Hypochloride is a misnomer. The suffix –ide should only be used when a single element forms part of the anion, not two as here. For the formula, both are used, I will investigate as to which is really preferable. Physchim62 (talk) 15:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe NaOCl is preferable because it indicates the electron sharing (or giving in the case of sodium) correctly, i.e if sodium was more electronegative or oxygen less electronegative, it would be a covalent bond that would look like: Na-O-Cl. (I hope that makes sense).--Mark PEA 19:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Spam

I deleted some spam. Someone inserted irrelevant commentary regarding the Clorox brand of bleach.

142.167.140.186 01:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Under Uses the second paragraph says these chlorinated byproducts of sanitizing surfaces are also harmful.. Does this mean harmful to ingest, to the surface, to the taste, or to the fermentation process? User:Wayne-PhyChemMth 15:54, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Valid resource?

Having consulted the resource cited on the dangers of mixing sodium hypochlorite with various substances, I'm not so sure it's a very good resource. The information is scarce and the page is clearly nonprofessional. Also, the definition of a catalyst was not specific about the catalyst not being consumed, and referred to the reaction between sodium hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide as catalytic, when the equation provided showed the sodium hypochlorite becoming sodium chloride, which wouldn't be catalytic. This will still need to be cited, but I can't find a decent resource that contains the information. 141.156.232.115 21:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Comparisons for industrial use against chlorine?

Could anyone do a comparison against chlorine? Wastewater treatment plants are being forced to change over to sodium hypochlorite due to chlorine being more of a terrorist target. Sodium hypochlorite is also noted as being more expensive Thanks!Kieranmullen 13:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Evaporating sodium hypochloride

hello people

Dom is my name i'm a Butcher and have recentley started a new job in a meat works.

We have this machine which is basically is a boiler ,we have vacum packiging bags which after they have been sealed pass through this boiling water and shrink the bags at the end of the day the person that operates this machine leaves an hour before me.

So he proceeds to clean this machine by pouring sodium hypochloride soloution into the water and letting it boil for 15 minutes ,then pouring the remaining water/hypo out and wiping it down, the result is a nice clean machine but at the same time fills the factory with fumes and makes me feel suprisingly sick , noone else in the factory seems to be botherd by it or maybe they don't want to say anything in fear of losing thier job but it really affects me.

So if anyone could tell me weather this is harmful on unhealthy i would greatly appreaciate some info because i won't be able to bear it much longer the bottom line is i'm looking for some info that will make my boss see its not good and make this operater get a brush and scrub it the old fachioned way instead of taking the easy way.

Best regards D Hart Sydney Australia email:dominichart83@yahoo.com.au —Preceding unsigned comment added by220.233.172.193 (talk) 00:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It's chlorine gas that is being released, it's considered toxic. I would think that would be some kind of violation. I would suggest that boiling is unnecessary to cleaning process. James.folsom (talk) 23:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Reaction with acids to produce chlorine

Although I was able to determine a simple equation to show that NaOCl reacts with HCl to produce chlorine gas I was unable to do the same thing for other acids. Am I missing something or are there other reactants or byproducts that I have overlooked?--80.175.250.218 (talk) 19:48, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Chlorine disproportionates:

Cl₂ + H₂O <=> OCl⁻ + Cl⁻ + 2H⁺

By adding sodium hypochlorite with HCl, you get the reverse reaction. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 01:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Introducing myself as potential editor

Greetings and salutations. I am a relative neophite as far as Wikipedia editing (though I have done a bit on the Bleach page). As an employee of The Clorox Company, and researcher in the bleach area since 1980, I see an opportunity to supplement and clarify some information on this page (for example, the first sentence under "Production" has to do with sodium chlorate, not hypochlorite, and the "Other Name" to the right is not correct). I would very much welcome any feedback and questions for clarification! GVB012009 (talk) 06:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)