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Comment by 762236 | Hacker News Reader

Where they describe how to sterilize it: DO NOT mix those chemicals together (e.g., bleach + rubbing alcohol = chloroform).

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And while we're here, let's go ahead and get these others out for people to read:

Bleach+vinegar = chlorine gas, Bleach+ammonia = chloramine, Bleach+rubbing alcohol = chloroform

Just don't mix bleach with anything.

And while we're at it, don't mix hydrogen peroxide and vinegar, either.

You need to add an extra newline at the end of each equation so it doesn't run all on one line. Like this:

Bleach+vinegar = chlorine gas

Bleach+ammonia = chloramine

Bleach+rubbing alcohol = chloroform

I like longer sentence structures and lists of connected items in that format. It's less blocky and easier for my brain to process connected items. I put commas in now for other humans.

Or bleach + diet coke + mentos.

Or to be even more generic, never mix a cleaning/disinfecting product with anything else.

There goes my childhood entertainment.

At least they didn't warn against the dangers of holding a match in front of a can of WD-40.

Once I used some WD-40 sprayed on a paper towel to lubricate a retracting car antenna. When I touched the antenna I got a static electric shock, and the paper towel burst into flames in my hand. Good times.

And before anyone gets big ideas about the chloroform, it is not pure chloroform; it is generally contaminated by phosgene, which is truly terrible stuff.

During a wasted youth I poured over hundreds of The Hardy Boys Casefiles, where they'd receive and recover from a traumatic brain injury 3-5 nights a week (getting "knocked out").

Thanks to your comment I now know the other nights, where they were not rendered unconscious by blunt trauma, but rather through a rag of chloroform, they were probably inhaling phosgene too.

Those boys were sure putting their futures at risk!

Hah, same. Between The Hardy Boys and silly TV crime dramas I think a lot of kids got the wrong impression about getting "knocked out". It turns out that pretty much anything that can cause unconsciousness is also likely to cause death or serious permanent injury.

But everyone knows a tap on the head causes instant unconsciousness!

https://xkcd.com/1468/ "Worrying"

Can you explain the chest wound on your right side part?

In the movies, a chest wound (like a gun shot) on the right side means, "Phew, it missed their heart!"

IRL, that injury on either side is equally worrying.

Even with chloroform, it is not like the movies, "here, does this rag smell like chloroform?".

It's probably five minutes of steady inhalation while your mouth and nose are covered by a rag (not held above your face).

Not particularly practical.

Source: my EMT class on poisons and ODs, thank you very much.

It is a bit sad that so many people miss or forget these important lessons in HS chemistry :P

Wasn't even told that about those things in HS chemistry in my time in my country, not sure why - considered too dangerous knowledge by educators? Only found out about it on 4chan and gasped on how easily we could have accidentally injured ourselves while cleaning our dorm bathroom.

I learned about these from the book "A Child Called It". When the abusive parent uses the bleach+ammonia mixture on him.

Then I tried to figure out what else bleach could do. This is not a healthy line of experimenting for a dumb 17 year old.

I 100% believe HS chem should teach this. Then at least you know what not to do.

Isn't it very clearly printed on the bottle in your country?

Here (I assume this is an EU regulation) it says "WARNING! Do not use together with other products. May release dangerous gases (chlorine)."

Here's a couple of typical labels in the US:

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/2025dfde-c877-4043-b91d-978...

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/05122787-1991-4084-869e-755...

The "DO NOT use or mix with other household chemicals, such as..." part should probably go on the front and a little bigger. I can't imagine that everyone would read the whole thing.

It's okay, because they pointed out that it's a violation of federal law to use the product in a way inconsistent with the labeling.

Checkmate people who don't read the label.

Here's an EU (UK/Ireland so it's English) one:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81nqrPdi1nL...

There are almost 200 pages of EU rules and guidance in the first document [bottom of 1], and some hundreds more pages in related sections of that site.

That said, the cheap-brand bleach in my cupboard has a word-for-word translation into Danish of the English text, and a consistent layout, and there's some merit in that.

[1] https://echa.europa.eu/regulations/clp/labelling

Wow, I wasn't sure if it was just me! Coincidentally that was also the same book I learned about those two being dangerous mixed together. Just curious, have you read "Go ask Alice"?

I really don't know how any chemistry can be taught without teaching metal + base reactions, or without teaching salt + acid reactions. I really really don't think your educators missed the rules that make it possible to know what happens when you mix foil with pipe cleaner or bleach with vinegar, they might've just not mentioned the very specific reactions and you failed to generalize.

I learned about it through The Anarchist Cookbook. They don't teach you in high school not to transport gasoline in a styrofoam container.

They don't teach you how organic solvents often dissolve polar materials such as various polymers? I'm really becoming befuddled here, what do they teach then?

Well, my grade school science teacher was also my gym teacher (he may have held a third position). So we mostly just sang periodic table rhymes and made baking soda volcanos.

Despite what you may have heard, the average middle-American education doesn't prepare you for the hard science of the real world.

Illuminating, I didn't know it was that inconsistent. I have a newfound appreciation of my own teachers now.

One has to ponder if starting teching that will result in the next TikTok bleach+vinegar inhalation challenge.

Peroxide + vinegar should not be poured together. They are safe ONLY in dilute concentrations like spraying a bit of each onto a surface and then wiping. https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/cleaning/tips/a32773/c...

As an FYI, those methods do not result in sterilization. Sterilization techniques must meet specific parameters.

interesting, that's a new one I didn't know about. I've always heard the Bleach + Ammonia = Mustard gas, but not that one

Bleach breaks down to chlorine, which in turn reacts with ammonia to form chloramine. Mustard gas has sulfur and cannot be synthesized this way.

Chlorine based bleach is just one of the things that has the label "Bleach" in your household cleaning aisle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach#Classes_of_bleaches

The only sulfur containing bleaches in that list are potassium persulfate and sodium hydrosulfite. Neither contains chlorine.

Furthermore, the synthesis of mustard gas is non-trivial. Those two chemicals are not enough to put the sulfur on a carbon chain.

If you mix bleach with just about any other cleaning chemical, you get chlorine gas, or chloroform, or some other nasty chlorine-based poisonous fumes.

(though not mustard gas)

Yeah, they should drop bleach from that list. It degrades the shield and it might just do more harm than good.

The markup of the page has the following:

So the page was made available for the intended customers only, healthcare workers who likely know how to properly use bleach to clean it. This page won't be indexed by search engines.

Ironically, because it was posted on HN, it will appear, but as a link inside of an HN story.

Oh boy. Haven't they been recommending a mix of bleach and rubbing alcohol for like a month?

No?

They who?

Independently, not together.

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