How do bleach and ammonia compare? Bleach vs ammonia?
Question:(of course you can't mix them!) When do you use each? Does ammonia disinfect? Is it more mild or less mild than bleach? Do you use it the same way?
Answers:
Ammonia and bleach are not equivalent cleaners. Let's start with bleach.
Bleach is made from a mixure of chlorine and sodium hydroxide, and has the properties of high pH and a species known as Hypo-chlorite. This is a molecule of both oxygen and chlorine. Because of this, it has very strong oxidizing and sanitizing capacity. It doesn't clean by making stains soluble, but rather, by reacting with the color bodies in the stain to convert them to a chemical species that isn't a visible color.
Ammonia is a molecule of nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, and has the properties that give it a charge on one end of the molecule and a non-charged charactheristic on the other. It is this dual charge or "polar" nature of the molecule that make it a great solvent for grease and oil. Basically, the non-polar end attaches itself to grease which is generally non-polar and the other end attaches itself to water molecules. The result is that the grease will go into solution. However, ammonia doesn't have the strong oxidizing or "bleaching" properties of household bleach. Thus it won't remove stains or color from fabric the way bleach will.
The only characteristic that they have in common is that both materials are basic in pH. Household bleach has a much higher pH or is more "basic" than ammonia.
Again.Use bleach to remove stains and to sanitize or kill bacteria. Use ammonia to remove grease and oil.
i'm a bleach girl- just aesthetically- i don't mind the smell, whereas ammonia seems so severe. i LOVE the clorox spray bottles, called clorox clean-up. i literally use it on everything and it's brilliant. ammonia always makes my eyes hurt and i feel better about cleaning with bleach (seems more gentle should it not get rinsed clean away- i know that's silly, but it's how i think)
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