A Laundry Chemistry Question About Chlorine

[uloset]

People like to add bleach while cleaning white cloths and linens. If you are adding it solely for its disinfecting properties, wouldn't a chlorinated water supply (my water is around 1ppm) suffice in disinfecting your laundry, especially since the CYA level should be zero. My only guess against my previous statement is that the fabric itself is "attacked" by the bleach, which will use up all the FC. Even if that is so, I would think one would only need to add perhaps an ounce to totally disinfect even the largest load of laundry. Obviously, I'm bored today .

 

[pooladdict]

I am confused about the laundry part, I always believed there was a laundry fairy

 

[uloset]

REALLY!!! I need to catch one of those suckers.

 

[JamesW]

The amount of chlorine in regular tap water wouldn't be sufficient to oxidize all of the contaminants in a load of laundry. In addition, the amount of contact time is too short for the concentration of chlorine in tap water.

 

[Patrick_B]

And. its not added for sanitzing as a primary reason. Bleach is added to whiten clothes as it's primary function.

 

[pooladdict]

Having a laundry fairy, I have no idea what all you are referring to.

 

[tim5055]

While I didn't have a laundry fairy, I discovered that a couple of accidents in the laundry room will get you banished from this room.... I'm trying to remember what it looks like in there

 

[pooladdict]

hahaha...exactly why I burned first shirt I ironed and totally butchered vacuuming. I get the outside, BH gets the inside.

 

[uloset]

The amount of chlorine in regular tap water wouldn't be sufficient to oxidize all of the contaminants in a load of laundry. In addition, the amount of contact time is too short for the concentration of chlorine in tap water.

What concentration of chlorine do you think would be needed to simply disinfect a load of laundry? I know the 1 cup rule is for the whitening effect is overkill just for disaffecting purposes.

 

[chem geek]

It's hard to know how much is needed because for disinfection you want a certain amount of time at a certain active chlorine level. The problem with laundry is that there may be many organics or other substances for chlorine to react with so that the chlorine level gets to near zero. Also, the length of time and concentration of chlorine needed to disinfect depends on what you are trying to kill. Most bacteria are killed very quickly, but viruses take longer.

If you had a piece of laundry with typical dirtiness and put it into a sink full of water with some chlorine, you could see how quickly the chlorine got used up. For killing bacteria and many viruses, just exposing the laundry to low (few ppm) chlorine levels for a minute or so would be sufficient.

 

[uloset]

Thanks for the reply chem geek.