Is there such thing as solid or powdered sodium hypochlorite?

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yardoasis

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May 20, 2014
155
Houston, TX
So I'm wondering why can't pool stores or hardware stores sell solid or powdered sodium hypochlorite? Just like they do with cal-hypo bags of shock. Is it because sod-hypo is unstable in solid form and must be stored in liquid at a low concentration? Not that I'm complaining about using bleach, I'm just curious :mrgreen:
 
There are very few forms of disinfecting chlorine known that are solid at room temperature and don't spontaneously break down (often explosively). Sodium hypochlorite has both problems, melting at 64 degrees and is highly unstable.
 
I wish we could set it up so the site got a dollar for every time someone asked that :colors: Actually the typical question is why they don't make tablets without CYA, but same idea. It is a great idea, we all wish it could be done, and whoever figures it out will be set for life.

The instability is evident in the lack of solutions stronger than 13% and even those break down fairly quickly when exposed to heat. So to keep chlorine stable and solid at room temperature it must be bound to something. Most commonly calcium or CYA. Less commonly lithium is used. It's all part of the complicated process of forcing a gas to stay liquid or solid.
 
There is a solid hypochlorite compound that does not increase Cyanuric Acid (CYA) nor Calcium Hardness (CH). It's called lithium hypochlorite, but it is very expensive. It is typically 35% available chlorine and has sodium chloride salt in the same proportion as sodium hypochlorite, but it also has sulfate salts (see Cost Comparison of Chlorine Sources for an ingredients list.
 
I always wondered why anyone would want to use lithium hypochlorite. The counter ion, lithium, must eventually build up in your water as either lithium chloride (mildly toxic) or lithium carbonate (known psychoactive compound used to treat bipolar disorder). I guess if you live with a bunch of nut-jobs, go ahead and use lithium hypo in your pool...everyone will be real chill :)

Like, far out duuuuuuuude......

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The lithium does build up but you aren't drinking the water and as described in this paper, there appears to be little skin absorption of lithium (undetectable level changes in blood serum). For use as a medication the dosage is typically about 1 gram per day. Even with 6 months of 2 ppm FC per day you'd be at under 40 ppm lithium in the water so would need to drink 25 liters of water to get that 1 gram of lithium. The real downside to the lithium hypochlorite is its price. The increase in sulfates isn't great, but it's a rather slow increase compared to using something like MPS non-chlorine shock.
 
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