So can you tell me what the equilibrium is at pH 7?
I unfortunately don’t know the Cl2 equilibrium at neutral pH, (I tried to calculate an overall equilibrium constant at fixed neutral pH from the equilibrium constants for acid and base context on wiki, got inconsistent results from them, and since I actually don’t know what I’m doing but am just applying half-remembered stuff from the one chemistry course I ever took at university plus looking things up on the fly, don’t understand why). But if you just want to know how much is OCl− vs HOCl, here’s a link with a graph on page 2 (basically should be the same as what you’d calculate using the acid dissociation constant for hypochlorous acid).
Anyway:
It might be important to note that I’m “cheating,” because I know as an empirical fact that ClO- is unstable in water—dilute bleach eventually turns into salt water, while salt water does not turn into dilute bleach.
So yes, you could have oxygen bubbling out too. I guess in this case we wouldn’t be as concerned, as presumably the sort of oxidation reaction done by oxygen itself is expected in an oxygen rich environment such as we live in and wouldn’t cause additional harm.
So, I guess that’s what you meant by metastable ClO−. But it sounds like this reaction is slow if not at high temperature? Also, I wouldn’t expect it so much to happen directly with HOCl, rather than ClO− , because O is the middle atom in HOCl so it seems to me it would be less likely to get pulled out in one step than if it’s one of the edge atoms.
At neutral pH HClO + ClO- can obviously react to form oxygen via peroxyhypochlorous acid. That’s not what happens to bleach over time because it’s sodium hypochlorite. It either loses Cl2 to air or ClO- disproportionates to chlorate and Cl-.
I’m trying to push frontiers. This stuff is on wikipedia.
I hadn’t heard of peroxyhypochlorous acid before, but looking it up (HOOCl) I can imagine it forming by the O’s of ClO- and HOCl meeting and kicking out one of the Cl’s as Cl-. That being said, given that Cl with O’s bonded tends to be more of a thing than oxygen-oxygen bonds (and Cl would be the more positive side (?) of the Cl/O bond having more protons and thus more likely to bond with the O than another O?), wouldn’t chlorous acid (HOClO) be more likely to be produced by those things reacting (with either of the Cl’s bonding with the O of the other and kicking out the other Cl as Cl-)? Which would then presumably lead to further oxychlorine stuff rather than pure oxygen?
I unfortunately don’t know the Cl2 equilibrium at neutral pH, (I tried to calculate an overall equilibrium constant at fixed neutral pH from the equilibrium constants for acid and base context on wiki, got inconsistent results from them, and since I actually don’t know what I’m doing but am just applying half-remembered stuff from the one chemistry course I ever took at university plus looking things up on the fly, don’t understand why). But if you just want to know how much is OCl− vs HOCl, here’s a link with a graph on page 2 (basically should be the same as what you’d calculate using the acid dissociation constant for hypochlorous acid).
Anyway:
It makes sense that that could happen:
So yes, you could have oxygen bubbling out too. I guess in this case we wouldn’t be as concerned, as presumably the sort of oxidation reaction done by oxygen itself is expected in an oxygen rich environment such as we live in and wouldn’t cause additional harm.
So, I guess that’s what you meant by metastable ClO−. But it sounds like this reaction is slow if not at high temperature? Also, I wouldn’t expect it so much to happen directly with HOCl, rather than ClO− , because O is the middle atom in HOCl so it seems to me it would be less likely to get pulled out in one step than if it’s one of the edge atoms.
At neutral pH HClO + ClO- can obviously react to form oxygen via peroxyhypochlorous acid. That’s not what happens to bleach over time because it’s sodium hypochlorite. It either loses Cl2 to air or ClO- disproportionates to chlorate and Cl-.
I’m trying to push frontiers. This stuff is on wikipedia.
I hadn’t heard of peroxyhypochlorous acid before, but looking it up (HOOCl) I can imagine it forming by the O’s of ClO- and HOCl meeting and kicking out one of the Cl’s as Cl-. That being said, given that Cl with O’s bonded tends to be more of a thing than oxygen-oxygen bonds (and Cl would be the more positive side (?) of the Cl/O bond having more protons and thus more likely to bond with the O than another O?), wouldn’t chlorous acid (HOClO) be more likely to be produced by those things reacting (with either of the Cl’s bonding with the O of the other and kicking out the other Cl as Cl-)? Which would then presumably lead to further oxychlorine stuff rather than pure oxygen?