Whew, okay, we are going back to high school chemistry folks, enjoy the ride!
Sodium Hypochlorite is NaClO
Na (Sodium) is happiest when it has one bond, this is because it has ONE valence electron hanging around it. think of it like a hand it is holding out.
Cl (Chloride) has 7 valence electrons shooting hands out. So hand one and two hold hands and form a bond.
Three and four do the same, as do 5 and 6…but hand number 7 is out there ready to attach to something. In order to be happy it has to have 8, it does this by attaching itself to something and forming a bond. in this case it attached itself to oxygen. It’s pretty happy.
O (oxygen) has 6 valence electrons. it also has to have 8 to be happy. So it stretches out 6 hands but only attached itself to Cl…this means 4 hands of itself are together, one hand is holding Cl, and one hand is just left hanging in the wind, so it is unhappy because it wants 8 spots full, and now only 7 are full. This means the charge on Oxygen is negative…because it’s missing a bond
So this extra hand is just waving around, so it of course starts grabbing at things…this is why to make SH they do it in a closed box, so the oxygen can’t grab anything else. We are surrounded by air, air has carbon dioxide, oxygen LOVES to be with carbon dioxide because it is written as O-C-O…see the two oxygens are on the end and they are waving their free hand…so it grabs our oxygen’s hand and rips it away from the Cl.
Now instead of NaClO we have NaCl…which is salt.
So why does SH degrade? Because the oxygen isn’t happy staying with Cl. The more oxygen with their hands out the more likely it will attract a CO2 molecule to change with. So as there are fewer and fewer NaClO’s there is less of a reaction.
Water in the atmosphere can have the same effect on the ClO molecule. This has less of an effect because inside the SH you get from the vendors is also NaOH…this is sodium hydroxide. It helps keep the water away by offering up it’s oxygen hand as well.
So, why can’t anyone make a chart on bleach content…because there are too many variables. How humid, hot (speeds up the reaction), level of CO2…how long has it been exposed to the CO2?
These all vary too much.
