Questions containing bleach and mold need answers!!!

[rymcco]

1. What makes bleach such a harmful chemical?
2. What makes the chemical reaction for bleach to kill mold?
3. I live in Phoenix and mold can be hard to grow. What’s the fastest way for me to grow mold?
4. What are some useful things that mold can do?
5. Why is bleach called sodium hypochlorite?


Please help me!!!

[tzforbes]

Hi rymcco,

Bleach is a bit of a generic term for several different chemicals. Clorox bleach and chlorine bleach are both made up of a solution of around 3-6% sodium hypochlorite (the chemical formula is NaClO so you have sodium = Na+ and hypochlorite = ClO-) and 94-97% water. Chlorine bleach itself has never been shown to be extremely harmful to humans but it can be a skin irritant. It can be very dangerous if you mix with other cleaners. Mixed with acid based cleaners you can form chlorine gas, which is very dangerous to breath. If you mix with ammonia based cleaners you can create different chemicals (amines) that can also be dangerous. So never mix bleach with different cleaners.

Now bleach can be harmful to microbes such as bacteria. Sodium hypochlorite in water will form HOCl and OCl- and react with certain proteins in the bacteria which causes the proteins to clump up. You can think of it as when you boil an egg... a similar sort of reaction happens to the proteins in the egg causing it to solidify. These proteins are found in the cell wall which will cause the cell wall to break apart and the bacteria dies

Similar reactions will happen when you put bleach with mold except it doesn't always work well. Mold tends to grow on very porous things like wood. When you wash the wood with bleach you will get at the surface mold, but there will still be mold spores inside the wood so they can start growing all over again.

So to answer your question 3: What is the fastest way to grow mold? Living in Phoenix, you have part of the equation: heat. Mold likes warm environments. The reason why it is difficult to grow mold in a place like Phoenix is that mold also like moisture. Living in the desert the humidity is low so there isn't a lot of moisture around. So the fastest way to grow mold is to get a big plastic container, put some food in it, and set it in a warm place. The plastic container will keep the water from the food inside the jar and help the mold grow.

For more information on mold: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold

Tori