Generally speaking, don't mix cleaners together. The other danger is ammonia (found in glass cleaners and some other 'milder' surface cleaners), which will gas you with chloramines when mixed with bleach.
NNescio said: Generally speaking, don't mix cleaners together. The other danger is ammonia (found in glass cleaners and some other 'milder' surface cleaners), which will gas you with chloramines when mixed with bleach.
As a non-chemist, chloramine seemed more annoying (irritating) than dangerous provided you ventilate the area reasonably well. Chlorine doesn't sound fun to deal with.
NNescio said:
Technically a recipe (the original recipe) for rocket fuel. Poisonous, carcinogenic, explosive rocket fuel.
Oh, hydrazine. Do gunpowder, gasoline, and ethanol not count? John Clark's Ignition put me under the impression that most rocket fuels were some combination of extremely toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic, and explosive. Injecting liquid mercury into a rocket engine doesn't even make it to the top of environmental recklessness.
That specific toilet cleaner (which I have in my cupboard, even) contains both ammonia and acid, if I'm reading the spec sheet right; meaning that it's a double whammy.
I would have thought it'd have been Toilet Magiclean, but that's a mint green bottle, not a bright green one with a yellow tip. (Which doesn't contain an acid... I think - Japanese chemical names are very much not my forte.)
Sadly, very difficult to buy pure ammonia as cleanser in Britain now --- need it to clean small ceramics --- just as with methylated spirits [ denatured spirits in some countries ]. Supposed to be for our own protection, but really a capitalist ramp to force one to buy more complex brand-name household cleaners...
As a non-chemist, chloramine seemed more annoying (irritating) than dangerous provided you ventilate the area reasonably well. Chlorine doesn't sound fun to deal with.
They are generally less toxic and volatile then chlorine, yes. Still potentially deadly though in the quantities produced when dumping ammonia-based cleaners into bleach (which will also produce some chlorine gas and chloroform). Usually it tends to knock people out (or 'just' sicken people) and send them to hospitals instead of outright killing, but it's still dangerous nonetheless.
Meddy-san said:
Oh, hydrazine. Do gunpowder, gasoline, and ethanol not count? John Clark's Ignition put me under the impression that most rocket fuels were some combination of extremely toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic, and explosive. Injecting liquid mercury into a rocket engine doesn't even make it to the top of environmental recklessness.
To clarify, it is the original recipe for a particular type of rocket fuel (and yes it's hydrazine). Raschig process, first industrial process for synthezing hydrazine. Uses the exact same chemicals too ('bleach' and ammonia), though at higher concentrations and with more tightly-controlled temperatures.
As for rocket fuels in general, they almost always involve highly reactive substances, and "highly reactive" basically means flammable, explosive, toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic, etc. or some combination of the aforementioned.
Paracite said:
That specific toilet cleaner (which I have in my cupboard, even) contains both ammonia and acid, if I'm reading the spec sheet right; meaning that it's a double whammy.
I pegged it for Sanpoll which is indeed a hydrochloric acid based cleaner. It also has an added (non-specified) alkyl trimethyl ammonium salt as a surfactant (improves "penetrating" ability, basically), though it is not quite the same thing as ammonia and shouldn't react appreciably with bleach in the short term. Bleach-based cleaners also sometimes use similar quaternary ammonium salts as surfactants, and they are noted for their stability in both acidic and alkaline conditions and even when mixed with both bleach or hydrogen peroxide.
Boring chemistry stuff
Ammonia is basically a nitrogen atom attached to three hydrogen atoms in a triangle pyramid shape. It also 'has' a lone pair of electrons (on the end opposite the hydrogens) which is responsible for much of its reactivity.
When dissolved in water, a small amount of ammonia will 'snatch' a proton (hydrogen without its electron) from water to form the ammonium cation NH₄⁺ and the hydroxide anion OH⁻. This OH⁻ is why ammonia solutions are alkaline.
NH₃ (aq) + H₂O (l) ⇌ NH₄⁺ (aq) + OH⁻ (aq)
Under acidic conditions, there are more protons, pushing this reaction to the right, resulting in more ammonium cations and less aqueous ammonia.
When bleach is mixed with (a high enough concentration of) aqueous ammonia, the overall reaction is as follows: NH₃ (aq) + NaOCl (aq) → NaOH (aq) + NH₂Cl(g) Chloramine gas!
This reaction is reliant on the lone pair of electrons on the ammonia molecule. If the ammonia is protonated to ammonium (NH₄⁺), then there's no lone pair of electrons and the reaction has to take an alternate path (chlorine atom attacking the positive nitrogen atom on ammonium) that is much slower. So this reaction is favored under basic (alkaline) conditions (where there are more 'free' ammonia molecules floating around), and not acidic.
This reaction can also happen with amines, that is, ammonia with other groups substituted in place of one or more hydrogen atoms (chlorination of trace organic amines is what's responsible for the swimming pool smell in treated swimming pool water). The reaction is similar, but the presence of bulkier groups partially 'shields' the lone pair electron, so the reaction is slower.
Alkyl trimethyl ammonium (salt) is what we call a quarternary ammonium compound, or QAC (pronounced "quat"). The "ammonium" part is is like the ammonium (NH₄⁺) cation, but with all hydrogens replaced with bulky groups. There is no lone electron pair, so the chlorine atom has to attack the nitrogen atom. But the nitrogen atom is shielded on four sides by bulky groups, making the reaction very slow.
There are some cleaning protocols that suggest mixing bleach with a QAC-based cleaner to produce a stronger 'universal' cleaner for disinfecting surfaces. This practice is usually confined to places like universities and research labs who know what they are doing (because bad stuff happens if you mix the wrong stuff together, and both bleach and QAC cleaners can potentially have other stuff that will react badly with each other).
Note that while alkyl trimethyl ammonium itself will probably not react appreciably with bleach over short periods of time, a formulation containing both alkyl trimethyl ammonium and bleach will likely not be shelf stable over long periods of time (because the methyl groups aren't bulky enough). In such products they will usually use a bulkier QAC that is even more inert w.r.t. to bleach. Some of Clorox's toilet bowl cleaners (the Rain Clean label, IIRC) uses Quaternium-15, which has a bulky cage-like structure surrounding the nitrogen atom, and also has additional nitrogen atoms within the "cage" to spread the charge.
Generally speaking, toilet cleaners in green/yellow containers tend to be acid-based. The liquid is usually transparent or yellow-tinged (like in the comic above). Bleach-based ones tend to go for blue and white packaging, and the liquid is usually dyed blue (again, like in the comic above).
(Of course, a lot of other cleaning solutions tend to go for blue and white packaging with blue liquids too. Acid-based ones usually don't, though.)
Claverhouse said:
Sadly, very difficult to buy pure ammonia as cleanser in Britain now --- need it to clean small ceramics --- just as with methylated spirits [ denatured spirits in some countries ]. Supposed to be for our own protection, but really a capitalist ramp to force one to buy more complex brand-name household cleaners...
...
The issue governments have with unadulterated ammonia is that it is also a good starting ingredient for all sorts of drugs and explosives.
Direct quote of Sweep's Support Card activation line.Tracen Academy trainers receive special training, so his life was not in danger.
Parody of the standard disclaimer on dangerous stunts performed on TV.TOILET
This one has acid.blerpblorppswshhhMAGIC
Cleaner
This thing has bleach in it.
■
Mixing those is a GRAVE mistake ■
A line from Mazeru na Kiken, the 1st season OP of the anime "Ushio to Tora"Bleach + acid → CHLORINE GAS.
Please DO NOT try this at home.