On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 14:30:11 -0500, "Aquarijen"
wrote:


"meirman" wrote in message
.. .
I've been told that chlorine bleach will kill the moss (and other
green stuff?) that is slowly eating my cedar fence rails, and very
very slowly my fence posts. Only the ones that don't get much sun.

But where do I get chlorine bleach? Even CLORox has only sodium
hyposulfite. And this isn't the Ultra, which I think is meant to be
color safe.

Although there is no H in Clorox.

When did it happen that they took the chlorine out of regular bleach?

This is what the Clorox site said:
Chlorine and liquid bleach are one in the same.

Actually they aren't. The term "chlorine bleach" is actually a misnomer.
What's in the bottle is sodium hypochlorite, the active ingredient in
liquid bleach. Although chlorine is used to manufacture sodium
hypochlorite, there is no free chlorine in bleach.

But on another page it refers to sodium hypochlorite killing fungus.

Meirman

If emailing, please let me know whether
or not you are posting the same letter.
Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.


Chlorine is a gas. In order for it to be usable, it has to bind to
something in solution. bleach is chlorine bound to salt in water. Sodium
Hypochlorite is chlorine bleach. If you let ordinary bleach evaporate, the
residue left from it is just salt.

-Jen


This is wrong. Sodium hypochlorite is not just salt with chlorine
bound to it. It is a specific ion, ClO-. Decompostion leads to
chlorine liberation which is promoted by acids. The hypochlorite
anion, ClO-, is a powerful oxidizing agent on its own. It is the
ability to oxidize and destroy many orgainc materials including
bacteria, which make both chlorine and hypochlorite so useful.

Gary Dyrkacz

Radio Control Aircraft/Paintball Physics/Paintball for 40+
http://home.attbi.com/~dyrgcmn/