Can anyone answer me this question about bleach

[Zak33]

Lo people

I know this is a super odd question but I need a simple, understandable answer pls

Bleach

I use it to clean white things and to make germs die. It stinks and that's bleach

BUT... while it does a great job on toilet bowls and on ruining your clothes.....how does it clean a stainless steel sink?

if my stainless steel sink is GREY/SILVER, which it is.. why does pouring bleach onto the stained bits.. make the stains go away?

Why does the metal, after bleach.. shine a shiny silver.. and not white?
What does the bleach do to "remove" the stains? It's actually irritating me for not knowing. Are they "gone" or not?

if you pour bleach onto a "thing" it reacts to some of those things. For fabric is makes it go pale or white. Then it weakens & rots fast. For germs and tbh my skin, it kills it.

For a white toilet bowl it makes it go more white

For a metal sink it makes it go more .. silvery grey.

What's going on?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Reactive Oxygen Species.

[flearider]

dirt and muck stain the very small scratches in the ss which then do not let light rebound .. bleach removes this and again it shines ..
you could polish your sink to a mirror finish but what a ball ache

[DDY]

Bleach is a very good oxidiser and pertinently quite effective at breaking or changing the chemistry of large molecules. Such as proteins which are essential for microbial life and generally large organic molecules which give certain dyes and dirt their colour.

Take dirt on your sink, a film of god-knows-what, the bleach will chemically mess with whatever substances are there and will change its properties such as colour and its affinity for your sink.

[peterb]

We use the term bleach to remove colour bleached fabric. There are many bleaching agents, sunlight will discolour fabrics (UV light in particular) one reason for hanging white clothes outside before chemical bleaches became common was to whiten them.

Modern bleaches are generally chlorine based of oxygen based - hydrogen peroxide.

As others have said, these chemicals are strong oxidising agents and react with a wide range of organic and inorganic substances. Chlorine bleaches are also very bad for fabrics, oxygen based ones less so.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach

[Zak33]

Does bleach REMOVE the stuff that stops the light rebounding?

Or does it make it invisible/ see through?

Or does it disolve it?

Because bleach doesn't need rinsing off to see the result.

[peterb]

Does bleach REMOVE the stuff that stops the light rebounding?

Or does it make it invisible/ see through?

Or does it disolve it?

Because bleach doesn't need rinsing off to see the result.

it depends on the material and the bleach formulation.

Bleach removes the colour, some bleaches contain detergents which aid cleaning, but breaking down organic material Ames removing it anyway.

Putting bleach down a loo won't necessarily remove lime scale but will remove the stain by er... bleaching it, but the lie scale will still be there, and the staining will return.

[DDY]

Taking a step back, repeating Wikipedia and generalising a bit.

The colour you see in your clothes from dye or the green from the mould in your sink are generally due to certain large organic molecules absorbing particular wavelength of light - you see what's left in the reflection, hence the characteristic colour.

There are particular chemical groups in these organic molecules which are responsible for the absorption of light, bleaching agents pull apart or alter these groups so that they no longer absorb that light. Therefore, the molecule now reflects light of all wavelengths and has no apparent colour.

So the dye or what ever was in the mould that produced the colour is still there, in fact the mould is still there - you'd need a fairly dangerous concentration of bleach, say sodium hypochlorite you find in typical household beach, to totally kill mould, particularly the spores which can be quite persistent. But even so, you can't see it any more, it's still there, albeit dead.

So you can see bleach alone is generally a poor cleaning agent, it might react with some substances and make them more soluble or less sticky to your sink or the toilet bowl, but it sucks for pulling away dirt and grime. That's why cleaning products will also contain surfactants for dirt removal.

[peterb]

Thanks ddy, far more succinct (or should that the sucked sink ....... /fetches coat) than my post!

[cheesemp]

So the dye or what ever was in the mould that produced the colour is still there, in fact the mould is still there - you'd need a fairly dangerous concentration of bleach, say sodium hypochlorite you find in typical household beach, to totally kill mould, particularly the spores which can be quite persistent. But even so, you can't see it any more, it's still there, albeit dead.

Hmmm. Thats interesting. I've always used watered down bleach to clean mould off PVC windows? Are you saying all I'm doing is hiding it or am I killing it? I've always been worried about using something stronger with a kid about...

[Corky34]

It does it by witchcraft, each bottle contains distilled witches tears.

[DDY]

Hmmm. Thats interesting. I've always used watered down bleach to clean mould off PVC windows? Are you saying all I'm doing is hiding it or am I killing it? I've always been worried about using something stronger with a kid about...

The typical mould you get on your windows is mostly susceptible to household bleach, the spores it produces however are quite resistant.

I suspect you're cleaning your PVC windows using a bucket of dilute bleach and a rag. While it doesn't totally eliminate the mould, the action of the bleach and simply wiping the lot away with a rag is actually quite effective at removing most of the mould and the spores - even if you're not killing it.

You can use a fungicidal product for better results, i.e. it does more thorough job of killing mould and keeps your windows mould free for longer. But for cleaning PVC windows, I'd go for the bleach and rag option considering how cheap and easy the method is.

[cptwhite_uk]

I suspect with regards to the steel sink the acidic bleach has an oxidising effect on the metal...think satin finish aluminium. This is an oxide layer that codes the outer layer of the material giving it a more dull / lighter coloured appearance.

[Corky34]

Bleach isn't an acid, it's an alkaline.

[Zak33]

ok I am learning here

very good input, thank you all so far

Now.. I know it doesn't remove lime scale, so I use other things for that, and my toilet bowls get cleaned with brush's too.

but I am also interested in the thick to thin bleach issue

Is thick bleach just the same but less runny? does it have a thickening agent in?

or is it more powerful that thin bleach?

[DDY]

ok I am learning here

very good input, thank you all so far

Now.. I know it doesn't remove lime scale, so I use other things for that, and my toilet bowls get cleaned with brush's too.

but I am also interested in the thick to thin bleach issue

Is thick bleach just the same but less runny? does it have a thickening agent in?

or is it more powerful that thin bleach?

In my experience, thick bleach is more potent, among other things.

The 'thin' bleaches I buy from the supermarket are usually some low concentration of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), 1.5-3.0%, possibly with some sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to keep the solution alkaline to slow the decomposition of NaOCl.

Thick bleaches that I've come across typically have a thickener in it, higher concentration of NaOCl ~5%, certainly has NaOH (again to slow NaOCl decomp) but also some surfactant, usually sodium laureth sulphate, and often some stuff to make it smell like trees, the 'sea' or some fruit.