Can you buy sodium hypochlorite?

A. Hi, Brooke

Sodium hypochlorite is NaOCl, basically bleach ⇦ bleach/sodium hypochlorite in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil links] -- "Clorox" is one brand name. Laundry grade is pretty powerful, and can kill you with toxic chlorine gas vapors if mixed with the wrong stuff. "Industrial bleach" at about 2-1/2 to 3 times that strength is available, too.

If you can tell us what you are planning, maybe we can answer more directly.

A. Hi Brooke, Clorox is a brand name, so they theoretically could put fragrances or something else into it if they wanted to, but I don't think they do. The idea of bleach is essentially to try to offer you the functionality of chlorine gas, but dissolved into a water solution. Chlorine gas won't stay dissolved unless the pH of the solution is held high with NaOH, and unless there is a reasonable amount of water. So sodium hypochlorite (bleach) has sufficient NaOH in it to hold the pH high enough to keep the chlorine in solution so it doesn't immediately deteriorate or explosively decompose, and enough water that it can be reasonably stable.

So if you say you looking for "pure" sodium hypochlorite without anything else in it, it's tricky to try to tell you whether bleach has anything else in it ... it does, but you couldn't actually have usable and stable sodium hypochlorite without that NaOH and water. Note that it is dangerous to mix bleach with other materials because if the reaction lowers the pH, that chlorine gas can't stay in the water, and it will fill the air.

A. The strongest that I am aware of is in a powder form that you can buy at a paint store that carries wallpaper. It is basically a mold killer in this form. You mix it with water according to instructions and use carefully following the instructions and cautions and warnings.

A. Sodium hypochlorite is only available in liquid form. You can get it at retail in concentrations as high as 15% about 3 times as strong as household bleach or Clorox. You get it a pool supply store and it is commonly known as "pool shock". Most stores sell it at 12.5%. The powdered form someone mentioned is actually calcium hypochlorite and is not nearly as effective as sodium hypochlorite. Sodium hypo. sold at 12.5% is unstable. You need to get it relatively fresh and in a sealed, dark container (usually blue). It stabilizes at around 5.5% which is why that is the percentage you will see in household bleach products.

A. Hi, Mark. I wouldn't say it absolutely can't be done, but I'd bet it's quite difficult and impractical. Why not just buy bleach (sodium hypochlorite) if that's what you want, or pool shock (calcium hypochlorite) if that's what you want?

The reason both chemicals are made, instead of just one, is that they don't work exactly the same way although they are both used for chlorination and disinfection -- the 'hypochlorite' part (OCl^-) is probably the heart of the matter.

But please explain your situation. Asking people to agree or disagree with an abstract proposition that stuff is "used for the same thing" is a very tricky concept: sugar and saccharin are "used for the same thing" (sweetening), but you can wreck a person's diet, and possibly even kill a diabetic patient by substituting one for the other :-)

Regards,

A. Hi, Roberto.

Dry sodium hypochlorite is explosive, so I tend to doubt that that is what you have. But I can't suggest to people how they mix dangerous chemicals that aren't even positively identified, and which are lacking MSDS sheets and technical data sheets.

Regards,

A. Hi, Patricia.

I doubt that you can buy dry sodium hypochlorite; and it is explosive if you can. If it exists, it would require way, way more than 1/2 teaspoon per gallon to equal 5.5%. If you want a dry disinfectant, are you sure you can't use calcium hypochlorite? What do you intend to do with this product which you want 50 gallons of? Thanks.

Regards,

A. Why not purchase a pool chlorine product that is 90% available chlorine? These are sold locally, pool supply stores. etc., and either in granular or solid cake form. When you want the equivalent of "household bleach" 5% strength, just mix in 1 gallon (128 oz) of H2O. I.e., to make an approx. 5% sol'n by weight just mix 7 oz of 90% available chlorine substance with 1 gallon of H2O to get => (0.9)(7)/128 ≈ 0.05 = 5% solution.

A. Hi Dennis. I don't think any such chemical exists; further, I don't think "sodium hypochlorite" (which I think is what you were actually looking for before the Chinese Whispers) is commercially available as a powder. I think you would need to go to calcium hypochlorite if you want powder form.

Regards,

A. Hi Dennis. I'm not commenting on allergies because I have no medical training and I'm unqualified to even have an opinion :-)

But I understand that sodium hypochlorite is not available as a powder whereas calcium hypochlorite is, and that it's the hypochlorite (OCl^-), not the sodium or calcium, that provides the disinfection power. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Paul. Laundry bleach IS sodium hypochlorite.

Regards,

Hi Kim. That is probably something for a full-time professional like your well digger to figure out. What happens is the chlorine is consumed by all sorts of chemical and biological reactions depending on what's in it, and you need to supply enough chlorine that you still have "free chlorine" available after all those reactions. "Breakpoint chlorination" is a pretty complicated subject, but this video should help. Good luck.

Regards,