What is in urine that makes sodium hypochloride turn white and bubble up into a foam?!
Can anyone explain?
Thank you in advance for your ideas.
Answers:
Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
Rosey G,
Hello again! NEVER use ammonia based detergents as cat urine is also ammonia based, and using this will only encourage your cat to use the same spot again. Ammonia also directly reacts with bleach to form hydrazine (N2H4, which, in addition to being extremely poisonous, can burn even in the absence of air! (It also explodes on contact with rust!) Bleach hydrolyzes into sodium hydroxide and hypochlorous acid, which in turn decompose into chlorine gas and nascent oxygen (both poisonous). The chlorine gas in turn reacts with the ammonia to form chloramines, also very poisonous. The ammonia that you smell from a cat's litter box is from the decomposition of the nitrogen rich by-products of metabolism. The gas is chlorine because bleach, chemically known as sodium hypochlorite, is an oxidizer and it gives up it's oxygen in the process and liberates chlorine as a by-product. This is the ‘bubbling foam’ that you refer to. This is a typical acid-base reaction because bleach has a high ph -12 to 12.6 and cat urine has a low ph - 5.5 to 7.0.
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Hope this helps
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