Water treatment Hypochlorite

Some friends and I recently had a conversation on using bleach for cleaning and water treatment [disinfection].

There ARE some concerns with having bleach on hand especially long term. Some of the concerns include leaking of bleach on the floor and destroying it. It is also concerning what other chemicals which could be near the bleach, some which seem innocent as they are both for cleaning include Ammonia which when combined will release a deadly poison gas – to bring this issue a little closer to home for you is the following story. A friend and I were talking one night at work about organ harvesting for transplant. Her first case was a young new mom who was home alone with her newborn. Her spouse was gone to work and she was doing laundry and trying to be environmentally friendly using cloth diapers. Her spouse got home in the morning there was a foul odor in the house and the baby was crying in the crib. He found the new mom in the laundry DEAD and called the fire department. Long story short there were 2 bottles open and tipped over on the floor – one was bleach and the other was ammonia and that is what killed her.

The other stuff discussed to segregate from bleach is brake fluid [and transmission fluid ect] will react with bleach [especially the tablets] and start fires.

Next topic was ref – Bleach loses it’s potency in about three months once it is opened. So the storage live span… Does bleach degrade with time? Yup IF it is not sealed tightly enough it will off gas and become ineffective, BUT that takes a long time and as long as there is a strong odor to the bleach it will still work even if it takes longer to react.

We discussed using the pool shock / chlorine tablets – while this will work you have to break them down to a more usable size and then you have the issue of dosages. It was suggested to get the single use tablets which are smaller and can be found in the laundry isle at Walmart ect. One tablet makes one gallon of bleach. I think that would be a viable idea. One of the group already does this to cut down on storage space and also to rotate her stock she makes it a gallon at a time.

Calcium Hypochlorite and Sodium Hypochlorate will disinfect water and clean stuff.. Both can be had in liquid or solid. Both should be stored in a ventilated area with a safe surface [tile, cement plastic] .

Of the normal 5.25 to 6% Hypocholate normal use to disinfect [what many people misstate as PURIFY] water is 2 to 4 drops to 1 L of water shack it well to mix [let some come out onto the threads of the bottle] tighten the cap and let stand for at least 30 minutes [longer if cold] open and if you can still smell chlorine it is most likely to be safe to consume… IF not repeat the process.

We also discussed another alternative to bleach– You could get a special device a” Miox Water Purifier” list price on Amazon today was $210.00…. and it will produce endless amounts of safe water for you…… you can get a LOT of bleach or pool stuff to treat water for that price. OR you can get pool salt at Walmart [last night there was 40Lbs bags on clearance for $1.00] or where ever — and MAKE your own bleach to treat water…

How can you make your own bleach for cleaning and disinfecting water? You may well ask! ;]

You will need some pool or plain table salt , a plastic container, plain clear water, one each SS fork and spoon, a 12 Volt power source which can be a car battery, battery charger, 2 6V lantern batteries ect. And a plastic bottle of some kind to store the resultant bleach. BTW you could use raw sea water if near or on the ocean.

Into the plastic container mix the water and salt -it is OK if not all the salt dissolves fact is it may be better if it does not as that way you know that you have enough for the complete reaction with the water. Next connect the power leads to the ends of the fork and spoon – place those into the salt water on opposing sides so they do NOT touch each other. Connect the power. You will soon see bubbles on the eating tools and shortly after that you will smell chlorine. Around an hour later you should have a strong enough sodium hypochlorite solution to be of use. It may take longer OR shorter to do this you will have to experiment. Altitude and temperature can effect the process.

Slowly decant the solution into the plastic bottle [which should be VERY clearly labeled as bleach] and cap snugly. This solution will store for a long time.

ymmv