Which Chemical is the Best Disinfectant? (Disinfectant Lore)

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Bleach really exists in your body? Propylene glycol disinfects the air? Apparently. Maybe that means people who vape are sterilizing the room? Fat rips season? Probably not.
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Editor/Producer/Thumbnail Artist - That Chemist (Joey)
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the song for the phenol montage is "Intensify - S3RL"
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[@1234lavaking]

5:23 my mom always told me “there are two categories of cleaners: bleach, and things you don’t mix with bleach.

[@sydhenderson6753]

If I remember, it features not only in stories about people accidentally producing chlorine, but also phosgene, which apparently has a pleasant smell until you die of asphyxiation by your throat closing.

[@rexperverziff]

@@sydhenderson6753what did you die from? i don’t know, but at least it smelled good

[@costlycoffee4234]

@@sydhenderson6753 even worse, its a lightly musty / haybale smell and even if you know that you need to get out phosgene can cause your lungs to fill with fluid hours later

[@Deritsuku2010]

So a fun fact in case no one else mentioned it: Bleach is used as a last resort method in my local hospital, for example if someone had MRSA. The reason for this is that we don’t want a situation where bacteria becomes resistant to bleach, which, for obvious reasons, would be pretty bad.

[@KibitoAkuya]

Genuine question, why bleach specifically over any other? Is it because of strength?

[@coleb2264]

⁠@@KibitoAkuyaif I had to guess it’s a combination of strength and availability. We don’t want a scenario where some superbug survives bleaching surfaces, because right now bleach is an incredibly effective, incredibly easy to access disinfectant

[@harrywilliamson7043]

......we have been using basically chlorine bleach to disinfect for water treatment for well over a century and no super bug has appeared yet. Chlorine is such a strong oxidizer it would be difficult for a bug to withstand it. About the only one I know of is Cryptosporism and even there it will eventually die if in contact with chlorine long enough.

[@Ne1vaan]

​@@coleb2264Additionally chlorinating a person is bad. Less bad than dying, but oxidizers like oxygen and chlorine make carcinogenic shit when you add them to organic compounds. Bleach is a little too deadly (directly or otherwise) for regular use. And a little too good to let bugs evolve resistance to.

[@jozak78]

A hospital I used to work at decided to switch to bleach based disinfection for everything in the hospital. That lasted one year because the bleach destroyed the surfaces of all of the furniture in the hospital.

[@MisterTalkingMachine]

My very cold and poorly ventilated dorm room used to get lots of mold on the walls during winter until the day I built an ozone generator with parts from old TV sets, and left it running while I was away to class. The problem pretty much ended there.

[@jakedill1304]

Just remember that ozone kills electronics as well.. and other things that you may not want killed that.. well let's say the only living they probably did is have a machine spirit.. so you want to be real careful when you're running it and maybe remove certain items from the room.. especially if you're doing it regularly.. but also God bless it cuz LOL I'm a smoker that's allergic to perfumes.. what I do without it LOL.

[@zyeborm]

Ozone kills plastics, fabrics, pretty much anything with carbon chains in it over time 😂 Useful but be careful.

[@MisterTalkingMachine]

Very goog advice, thanks everybody. Usually when I left there'd be no electronics left in the room other than a phone charger. The output of the generator declined slowly over time as the electrodes I made started to get covered in corrosion, but it still got me through the remainder of that winter pretty well.

[@coopergates9680]

I think nitrogen dioxide should be looked at for these types of applications as well, if it's easier to produce (and doesn't spontaneously decompose in high concentrations).

[@vaultdweller2511]

@@coopergates9680 Electric arcs will form oxides of nitrogen as well as ozone, using just the N2 and O2 out of the air. This was actually used industrially to produce nitric acid by bubbling the output through water (using massive amounts of power because the yield is low) about a hundred years ago. I once used a neon-sign transformer to produce small quantities of nitric acid this way, before the boyfriend complained too much about the constantly buzzing scary electric arc in the garden shed.

[@marioster2]

It’s 2 minutes into the upload. I better not see anyone talking about how they watched the video that fast

[@johndeaux8815]

Just finished the video ten times and it's a banger💯💯💯💯🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@Sniperboy5551]

Wow, another great video! Bleach is not a very good mouthwash!

[@gbabes175]

The video is great prob his best one

[@kphaxx]

@@Sniperboy5551 Speak for yourself!

[@squigglycups5666]

Thank god, now we need a degreaser tier list

[@ShockedCaucasian]

This was super cool! Its nice to learn actually h o w the disinfectants work rather than just "Kill microbes"

[@user-yw9mw9hv8o]

Yes, another big thing is how disinfection =/= sterilisation, as was mentioned with the lack of sporocidal activity of isopropanol for example. Bacterial spores are really tough, all tightly packed and desiccated and coated in thicc layers and shit. If your material isn't sensitive to heat or water you can autoclave it, but in other cases you need stuff like ethyleneoxide. That's why so much sterile material like plastic syringes is often sterilised chemically.

[@NipkowDisk]

I agree. I had no idea why there is usually a mixture of quaternary ammonium compounds in such a disinfectant. I always figured it was for cost savings in production while maintaining efficiency; however, each one described targets different types of organisms. It could be both, though, and perhaps was discovered by accident (not at all unheard of).

[@Sniperboy5551]

I love the fact that I fell asleep to the irritant video last night, now I can fall asleep to this one. There’s something soothing about chemistry and this guy’s delivery, I love this channel!

[@Renoh74]

Haha I also fell asleep while watching last night, woke up kind of irritated for some reason

[@janneaalto3956]

It's the sound of learning XD

[@RobynDeBank]

Omg same

[@AsmodeusMictian]

"...it's effectively oxygen gas that got into a car accident" I laughed way harder than I should have at this.

[@diablominero]

Chloraseptic works for sore throat better than anything else I've tried. Smells and tastes like evil rotting plastic, but when you're in pain and can't sleep, sometimes evil rotting plastic is tolerable.

[@SoulDelSol]

The green one is minty and red one is cinnamony.

[@NipkowDisk]

I was hoping to see mercuric chloride in this list... I had a neighbor many years ago who worked for the state Health Department. One day we were talking about disinfectants, and I mentioned mercuric chloride to him. His eyes nearly popped out of his skull. He told me a story where they took a Petri dish full of ultra-nasty stuff and they put in a solution (probably 1:3000 or similar) of mercuric chloride. They examined the dish under a microscope ten minutes later, and NOTHING was alive.

[@cavalieroutdoors6036]

That sounds like stuff that would erase everything. Possibly to include the user.

[@NipkowDisk]

@@cavalieroutdoors6036 Yep. One to two grams is fatal.

[@alexlo7708]

I think it was just chlorine that kills microbes. Mercury does nothing.

[@derAtze]

Got to be honest, doesn't sound too bad to me. A few shavings of silver probably could have done the same, as well as half of the disinfectants on the list. Its easy enough to disperse a quarter gram in a liter of solution which makes it non lethal by dose, and it seems to be effective. Bleach also is able to destroy its user, it's still sold in basically every convenience store on earth

[@alfredoprime5495]

According to one of my chemistry profs, because there's no such thing as iso-propane then there can't be such a thing as iso-propanol. He made me change all mention of iso-propanol is a lab report to 2-propanol. Yeah. The reaction you're having now was my reaction too.

[@justinedward9243]

Should be Propan-2-ol🤓🤓

[@frunkchungus]

Howisheemployedat-ol?

[@mmmhorsesteaks]

Man you get these weirdos sometimes - like "ammonium hydroxide" in stead of just ammonia - because we don't have lewis theory apparently...

[@fleskenialation]

​​@@justinedward9243i think both are fine and convey the same thing. Guess it just depends on who your audience is

[@zombieregime]

@@mmmhorsesteaks Have you heard about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide?

[@LemurG]

I had a high concentration phenol put on my toes when I got surgery for ingrown nails! My podiatrist explained everything that was happened because chemistry is fun. I got shots that made my toes completely numb so I felt nothing at all. The skin turned completely black and it was really interesting to watch! My toes are pretty much fully healed now

[@ZMandoness66]

I love the mechanisms behind "what and why people use it". I think it might drive my doctors nuts but the innate curiosity is definitely unquenchable.

[@MrGatlin98]

@@MalachiWhite-tw7hl I 've had the same surgery. It's definitely not comfortable but not the worst. The most painful part is if the needle goes "too far" and hits the under-side of the nail; that didn't feel good. The injections are certainly the worst part of the whole ordeal. Fun fact, the phenol application didn't work for me, and the nail grew back. I had to have a second surgery.

[@mem1701movies]

@@MrGatlin98I tried with an Xacto Knife and pliers to get rid of one to no avail. Went to a podiatrist with no insurance and asked how much the numbing agent was. So I just had him yank out the ingrown toenail without it.

[@me0101001000]

Have you done detergents yet? Because they're a lot more interesting than they get credit for imo, and also I'm itching to share some fun facts about detergents.

[@revenevan11]

I second this topic suggestion!

[@Galangxd]

YES!

[@ChildrenOfOwls]

I would love that too…. Also feel free to slap some detergent fun facts on me

[@PeperazziTube]

I used to work in a turkey egg farm. A mixture of permanganate and methanol (producing formaldehyde gas) was used to disinfect the eggs after collection. Killed bacteria but did not harm the avian foetus.

[@SoulDelSol]

Dinosaur egg farm

[@FleshWizard69420]

Isopropanol is an excellent disinfectant. Also makes great cryofluid too

[@mattnichols3555]

10:25 hey finally a chemical store I can add! I was gargling with hydrogen peroxide as a kid (had a mouth ulcer iirc) and had two of those small paper cups set out in the bathroom. One I was using with water to rinse the taste out of my mouth and one for hydrogen peroxide. I mistakenly swallowed a small amount of hydrogen peroxide (~10 mL or so) and promptly freaked out. Taste was horrible and tingled/slightly burned going down my throat. Parents called poison control and they said to just drink a bunch of water and monitor for other symptoms. 0/10 do not suggest taking shots of H2O2.

[@samiraperi467]

If you drink H2O2, drink H2O too.

[@archivethearchives]

Don’t forget radioactive materials. Radiation is used a lot for sterilization of single use medical equipment apparently. According to the IAEA, 40% of single use medical devices worldwide are sterilized using gamma irradiation. Although I am not sure what exactly is used to produce those rays. 🤓 (yes, I am aware this is probably a misinformed and very annoying comment. Take it with a grain of salt. Great content as always. 👍)

[@archivethearchives]

Also I am well aware that mostly recanting my statement does not nullify any reasonable criticisms. And that my comment very blatantly ignores the spirit of this video in bad faith just to be annoying.

[@aqdrobert]

Hulk LOVE gamma rays. SMASH puny bacteria!

[@derAtze]

Don't feel offended by this, but are you an autist? 😅

[@rhynnoh1991]

I appreciate the cutaways containing more detailed explanations of some of the terminology

[@robertb6889]

My wife worked in the hospital and they used peroxy-acetic acid formed by a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid for sterilizing surfaces.

[@prankmastereight]

In my experience it has a habit of bleaching your skin lol

[@darksu6947]

​@@prankmastereightIt's ok to be white 😂

[@robertb6889]

@@prankmastereight didn't do that for her, but it caused massive nasal/sinus irritation for her when using it.

[@prankmastereight]

@@robertb6889 must be real stinky

[@-r-495]

finally someone else from my nick of the woods..! Yes, peracetic acid was missing for me too! VHP is effective for surfaces only but Minncare will churn through the worst stuff within a few hours in the right conditions. Used in labs too („furry“ science..).

[@randomuseryt5143]

IPA is effective on de-roaching small articles of electronic equipment by dumping some into a garbage bag and placing the object inside and sealing the bag for 2 or 3 days, would not recommend for anything plastic or with lots of glued on labels and decals

[@MarekKoshinski]

As someone who’s had Spinal Fusion twice.. Povidone-Iodine 1% is something I’m very used to. I would have to have that poured onto my back every time they changed my bandage. I remember one time they spilt the bottle onto me and I thought it broke open the wound since it looked like blood. 😂

[@FirstLast-oe2jm]

I've always been curious why there's so many disinfectants in use, some of them make sense but there's just so many! Great content as always!

[@alexkaplan6581]

3:25 Speaking of cleaning throats, some people use those sprays as a way to relax muscles in the throat. For what reasons, I shall leave to your imagination.

[@pellestorck3776]

Where did you pick up that piece of information? Lol

[@alexkaplan6581]

@@pellestorck3776 Online friends.

[@michaelimbesi2314]

Good to know, thanks ;)

[@whynotjustmyusername]

Doctor here with some more or less educated corrections: 0:13 The effective agent in most skin disinfectants is isopropanol and/or ethanol though. Yes, some products also contain chlorhexidine or octenidine, but that is usually put there to have a continuous antimicrobial effect even after the initial disinfections, which is useful for catheters etc. that pierce the skin and are to remain in place for a longer period. The isopropanol is doing the main bug killing work though. There are also some products where the chlorhexidine or octenidine are the main effective agent, but those are rarely used for preoperative or preinterventional skin disinfection, but mostly for wound care or disinfection of mucosae or genitalia. One case where octenidine is actually used for skin disinfection is before taking a blood sample for alcohol testing, to avoid any potential preanalytical falsifications. 7:29 Endoscopes are not sterilized but disinfected. Anything that goes into a sterile field, respectively inside a person (the digestive tract is technically just a tube of "outside" going through the body, so in there doesn't count) has to be properly sterilized. That also counts for laparoscopic instruments and optics which are typically autoclaved. In general, the most common sterilisation methods for any sort of medical product are autoclaving, ethylene oxide or radiation. Stuff that gets re-used will typically be autoclaved. AFAIK glutaraldehyde cannot be used for sterilisation, at least under the guidelines of the RKI, the German federal public health office. Finally I'm a little sad you didn't include peracetic acid as its own thing (yes, you mentioned it in "bleach", but eh). Peracetic acid actually has a cultural heritage where I'm from, East Germany. East Germany kept huge stockpiles of that stuff to use as disinfectant in case of a biological warfare attack. However since it's so sensitive to... everything and decomposes over time, it cannot be stored for long and had to be constantly produced... and therefore also used. So in East Germany it was used to disinfect just about everything. From antimicrobial soaps, to cleaners to mop floors with to disinfecting livestock bays. Many visitors to East Germany remarked of the characteristic smell of East-German buildings.

[@GogiRegion]

Benzalkonium chloride is great for disinfecting when you get an IV or a shot because it doesn't cause that burning sensation the same way as alcohol and other disinfectants. With alcohol, you can wait for all of it to evaporate, but many times nurses and lab techs don't have time to wait that long every needle poke, but if they have benzalkonium chloride, it doesn't matter.

[@ZergZfTw]

I think ozone is my favorite, it oxidizes just about everything. Plus it can be used for the same things potassium permanganate + greensand like getting rid of dissolved iron. I have heard ozone plus UV light can even break down PFAS.

[@lillian8589]

Also ozone plus hydrogen peroxide = amazing oxidizer. Either way, ozone is hard to beat.

[@derAtze]

I really fell in love with it since moving into my dormitory. You're allowed to smoke in there (which i knew) but have to paint it in a special 90€ paint when you switch rooms/move out (which i didn't knew). So I smoked a lot of weed, and when wanting to move in a better room being bummed out by the bill. So I refused to buy that paint and do all the walls, so i just bought an O3 generator for literally half the price of the paint which did an even better job as the paint (which basically just coats the wall in a layer of plastic) that my roomate used for his room. I use it quite regularly every few months to make my room fresh again (since I live sleep work in the same room, lets just say smells can accumulate even while being somewhat cleanly) and to disinfect my pet snakes terrarium once in a while to prevent mold from growing and to get rid of ammonia buildup and stuff. It's an amazing piece of technology, it just does so many parts of cleaning on the press of a button and reaches literally everywhere where there is air. Insane stuff

[@jizmoglass4202]

I used to have a cleaning contract with a local Dentist office. We used Parsons Ammonia to wipe down all the dental stations. Fabuloso for the floors. The dentists were clean so we rarely had to use bleach. Maybe in the bathroom that the patrons use. Honestly was one of the best places I ever worked and it was just me and sometimes another guy, for like 2 hours, 5 days a week. Super nice people. Heritage in Dundas/Northfield. Ya. Where Jesse James did his thing at the bank.

[@Mike_359]

91% Isopropanol is pretty good as a cleaner though, especially if you put a bit on a qtip to clean small electronics. In this case, the evaporation helps!

[@NautsuJJR]

damn. weve been getting back to back videos and theyre all still really thorough, this is great

[@shadowpoet4398]

Leave it to a chemist to be completely thorough. Walter White said it "This is CHEMISTRY! _DEGREES MATTER!!_ Now drain it and start over!"

[@ScatteredParticles]

There's actually UV wavelengths deeper than the typical 254 nm UV-C light from mercury lamps which are completely safe at fluxes capable of sterilizing 90+% of microbes. Photons between 215-235 nm are fully absorbed in the first few micrometers of skin (which are all dead cells) and so can't DNA damage in living tissue. This is true even for your eyes, because they too have a very thin layer of dead cells on the surface.

[@-r-495]

this is not common practice in industry at all. currently MH UV sources are the only ones that may be used for some applications.

[@Sniperboy5551]

Bro really edited My Little Pony on that jar 💀

[@That_Chemist]

You already know

[@koukouzee2923]

Bro iam crying "Prepare your endo for the scopes"

[@Rover1309]

Fun fact, chlorine and chlorinating agents are added during water treatment to also bind to reactive cyanide groups.

[@sashboo1370]

Very nice video as always! Another video auto played after and I realised your mic quality has really improved! One thing I will say though, you didn't mention my favourite disinfectant, singlet oxygen!

[@danielharrison5731]

Surgical technologist here! Here's some more insight into chlorhexidine (CHG) and iodine. CHG is used in many surgical scrubs and preps as it not only has a broad spectrum effect that drives quickly, but also builds up on the skin over time with multiple uses. Many patients are given CHG wipes to use at home one to two days before surgery to help build up that film of antimicrobial good stuff. In addition, CHG is frequently found in IV start kits, and is a well used antiseptic right alongside an alcohol swab. For iodine, it will stain a little bit, but that's good because we want to see where exactly we need to still hit with the iodine prep. We would typically use this when someone is allergic to CHG, but you need to be very careful with iodine. If you have an allergy to shrimp or shellfish, you will be allergic to iodine prep It has similar chemical indicators to shellfish. Last thing to be picky, c h g and iodine are both considered antiseptics, but can also be used as disinfectants. This is a legitimate difference, but that's just me nitpicking. This is an awesome video man, very well done

[@christianterrill3503]

They use isopropyl alcohol pads for injections, vaccines and IV prep. They are using the stronger stuff for surgery like iodine and clorahexadine

[@KarlKarpfen]

By regulation (EU-MDR) for medical device cleaning, disinfection and sterilization, the S-tier would be heat for both disinfection (90-95°C for 5 min) and sterilization (three cycles of 121°C steam and then vacuum), the A-tier is ethylene oxide or ozone for sterilization and peracetic acid for disinfection and the B-tier would be formaldehyde for sterilization and glutaraldehyde for disinfection. The others are rated worse for application on medical devices (in Europe).

[@Nexus_545]

My lab had an over zealous crackdown on health and safety and we replaced all the common lab disinfectants with household cleaners using Benzalkonium Chloride. Since then we've been finding more surviving Salmonella and resistant E.coli from our routine monitoring. Interesting to know there's different chain lengths with different efficacies. We also found that it deteriorates our plastic equipment over time but that could be other compounds in the solution I guess.

[@nibs7252]

I mean, you can always try dousing everything in Lugol's

[@justapersononhypixel884]

as a person who accidentally made chlorine gas using bleach in my kitchen, yea listen to this guy don't mix it lol

[@Rusty-METAL-J]

Hey guy I've seen more than a few of your Chem vids and this is the 1st 1 featuring - well you. Kewl content man. I like the way you show the molecular formulas for the chemicals. Any body can write a chemical formula like H20, but not everyone can draw a molecular formula that looks super nice.

[@Rusty-METAL-J]

Mine have always been d'ed. w/ Isopropyl Alcohol pads.

[@PyromaniacLVI]

This video is great! I see the effort in the research, its good stuff. (love the mechanism stuff) I'd love if you did a tierlist on preservatives. (Isothiazolinones, bronopol, pyrithiones, glycols, organic alcohols etc.) I work in an analytical chemistry lab with these and three's some interesting chemistry with them. EDIT: i just watched again and comment up top was covered with benzalkonium chloride.

[@keisisqrl]

Quaternary ammonium deserves S tier! If you’ve ever worked back of house towels in a bucket of quat sanitizer are the universal cleaner during service.

[@That_Chemist]

They work so well

[@quincyboyce845]

i need to get a barrel of quat concentrate for my home!!! that stuff is so good for wiping anything and everything food-related away

[@grayski3324]

Woah, this will be so useful for when a ton of strawberry jam is spilled in my attic.

[@JonathanAlexanderM]

Back when I used to work at cvs our manager would tell us to pour bleach and ammonia within the bags of candy or whatever we had to throw out so that no one could get to em when we threw em out back. You’d tie the bag and then it’d puff up real good. I always thought it was messed up but I didn’t want to lose my job

[@rggu-tk7ed]

Great vid! As usual, great information and cool presentation

[@ElectronicMusicDaemon]

I'm really afraid of phenol because when I had it stored in its original plastic container the smell wouldn't stop coming out. And the problem did not disappear when I put it in a borosilicate glass tube with a screw cap and PTFE liner. The problem was solved when I wrapped the lid with several turns of Teflon that sold in hardware stores.

[@benbookworm]

Phenol works really well when you have sore throat. It's like (and might be) that initial numbing stuff the dentist gives you before using that big needle of numbing. Cough painlessly!

[@Sanchuniathon384]

I use 29% hydrogen peroxide to bleach animal bones from BBQ, hunting, etc. Last time I used 6 litres of it, it FUMES a LOT. Boy I wish I had a fume hood, but I always do it outside. It takes like a week to turn really nasty bones into fine museum specimens.

[@katiefrisk980]

One upside of bromine as a disinfectant is the higher pKa of HOBr, meaning that more of it is in the active protonated form in neutral pH. If you add some baking soda to chlorine bleach nothing will happen initially (because it is not strong enough of an acid to significantly protonate NaOCl), but add a milligram of sodium bromide and it will turn orange from the HOBr.

[@chantellekirk2993]

In 2018, quaternary ammonium compounds became my kryptonite. Messes up my mitochondria almost instantly after inhalation of even miniscule amounts.

[@agentofashcroft]

Love to see the mechanism of action of these different disinfectants, which I've found hard to find in one place. I'm a microbiologist and would personally rank these based on their sporicidal activity, since some bacteria and most fungi can form dormant spores which are very resistant to many disinfectants. This is why I'm not a big fan of hand sanitizer since ethanol does nothing to these spores - wash your hands instead!

[@Rachel-sx8zw]

Ethylene oxide is also is used in some fuel-air explosives. If it fails to fully ignite, it effectively functions as chemical weapon.

[@thelakeman2538]

Bacteria can evolve UV resistance, there are some extremophilic bacteria and archaea which are resistant to UV and other ionizing radiation but chances are your average pathogenic bacteria will never be able develop or obtain genes for something like that.

[@ChineseKiwi]

5:27 - Thanks, I’m on yet another watchlist from your videos 😂

[@disorganizedorg]

Propylene glycol also finds use as an antifreeze in potable water lines (RVs, seasonal cabins, etc).

[@suspicaxrohde2310]

Fun fact! Phenol is still used today in clinical microbiology laboratories. Phenol itself is a common part of AFB stains (looking for mycobacteria, like tuberculosis) because it both kills the bacteria and fixes them to the slide. Lactophenol is part of fungal stains for similar reasons. As both of those classes of organisms can be easily transmitted by breathing in the primary specimen, it's important to set them up in a biological safety cabinet, but then be able to read them under the microscope when all the organisms are dead.

[@leon13noelspy]

A common disinfectant that i would’ve wanted to see in that list is Virkon S. Sometimes also called Oxone or Potassium peroxymonosulfate. It is very commonly used to kill virusses, bacteria and fungi/ molds. A friend of mine works in a viral lab and uses this stuff quite alot to clean equipment and surfaces. It’s pretty great

[@liam3284]

We use 70% isopropyl alcohol to clean up circuit boards and electronics. Didn't know it also disinfects them, nice.

[@willswanson1840]

The Br + O3 reaction is problematic enough that ozone-based water treatment processes have to be suspended even at fairly low bromide concentrations. I used to work at a treatment facility that used O3 primarily to oxidize the hell out of triazines, and we were checking bromine levels about every half hour when the river was above a certain stage. An old oil operation was leaking produced water from substandard brine pits, and the bromides in the PW were on the order of 1100 ppm.

[@mateoarevaloyazzo6113]

Man, excellent video. Can you do one video of the best chemicals for cleaning and decontamination of indoor spaces?

[@OPNotes]

Ototoxicity does not require placement in the ear. This usually refers to ingestion or absorption through the skin, then causing damage to the inner ear.

[@lefthandedspanner]

speaking as someone who used to formulate mouthwashes for a living, chlorhexidine is by far the most temperamental material I have ever worked with it really doesn't like salts or alcohol, so you'd often struggle to add fluoride, sweetener or preservative to the formula without the chlorhexidine crashing out

[@Xiassen]

I love info being described as lore

[@gamereditor59ner22]

Thanks for the educational and keep it up!

[@shukrutav]

Excellent video. What are your thoughts comparing Simple Green, Mr. Clean, Clorox, Lysol for all-surface cleaning/organics in the kitchen?

[@sammyjones8279]

Hearing that "this substances kills your own cells" then seeing a picture of a medication I use frequently flashed on screen in the same sentence was definitely an *experience* today 😂

[@paulm.8660]

Really unclear what the criteria are for these tiers. Phenol is too effective at killing things, it kills your own cells too, C-tier. Bleach dissolves human flesh but also produces deadly fumes if mixed with other cleaning chemicals, A-tier. Chlorhexidine is safe to put on your hands, in your mouth, and in your eyes, but makes you go deaf and gives you cancer, S-tier.

[@burnblast2774]

If I was to guess about bromine in hottubs, I would think that is higher molecular weight probably makes it and it's compounds less volatile than their chlorine equivalents at higher temperatures, therefore making the hottub smell less like pool.

[@foxyfoxington2651]

But how will the headset work while I'm trimming the hedges?

[@shadowpoet4398]

15:00 Propylene Glycol is a blistering agent if you're allergic. It's not as safe as people try to make it seem. More and more people are, through exposure, developing allergies which make reactions to all other glycols in food, cosmetics, drinks, etc. Only when it's polymerized is it hypoallergenic

[@transcendtient]

I haven't watched the video yet, but I can tell you what I use around the house is 80% white vinegar and 20% ethanol (Everclear).

[@JP-wx6uh]

One thing to keep in mind is the following: Formalin 10% (neutral buffered) solution is not a 10% concentration of Formaldehyde as it may look on the label. It is actually 10% of the reagent grade Formaldehyde, which is 37-40% concentration (which is usually only used nowadays as embalming fluid). So it is basically 3.7 to 4% Formaldehyde concentration. There is a neutralization solution that can be bought, but the volume required to neutralize Formalin is a 1:1 ratio and the costs add up for clinical laboratories.

[@GrowthCurveMarketing]

Great clip! Informative and comprehensive. That said, while it’s primarily used as a biocide preservative in things like growth media, I’m surprised you didn’t cover sodium azide. It’s remarkably potent, effective, and persistent.

[@BsedMan-if6tb]

I used some phenol based throat spray when I had tonsillitis because it also has a numbing effect

[@jeffhutjens]

Hydrazine is also found in common button mushrooms. You breathe it while you cook them. One mushroom expert questions whether they should be eaten at all.

[@klocugh12]

One thing you should be able to mix bleach with is lye. In fact most bleaches contain a little NaOH as NaClO is more stable in basic pH. Which is also why it is a really bad idea to wash your hands in them. They also permanently remove dyes from clothing, which many think is a stain, but it is not. You don't wash it away, you have to reintroduce the dye. Note that doesn't mean you can mix bleach with lye-based cleaners due to other stuff they may contain (notably aluminium flakes). What about merbromin (mercurochrome)?

[@Humbulla93]

If you dillute the bleach enough then it won't discolour the clothes

[@klocugh12]

@@Humbulla93 if you dilute HCN enough, it won't kill you either.

[@holdenleeb2312]

I literally had that exact bottle of phenol chloraseptic sitting next to me when it popped up

[@user-tn1vc1xz5d]

Peracetic acid is commonly used for instruments. It is mixed with hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid. These are its breakdown products so improving shelf life. Chlorine dioxide is also used widely, generated from sodium chlorite and citric acid, mixed immediately before use.

[@debrucey]

Hypochlorous acid is my personal favourite, so gentle on skin compared to most of the others so great for disinfecting cuts. I spray it in my shoes too

[@adolfilyichmarx9589]

Phenol throat spray is good for a sore throat because it soothes the irritation. Its amazing when youre incredibly sick.

[@WafSyir]

thanks for the drinks tier list, much appreciated

[@ESTrashfire13]

99% isopropanol is used in bowling alleys to clean the run-up to a lane, to clean them and leave a somewhat slippy feel, that is more resilient to moisture than talc powders.

[@dragoon0anime]

"Chlorhexidine is also used in toothpaste..." Me: Cool. "...and is also possible that chlorhexidine may be a potential carcinogen." Me: WTF? (I'm running to check my toothpaste ingredients.)

[@Arma5666]

Where would you put Iso-betadine in the tier list? I always keep some in my emergency kit, it’s a good wound disinfectant but it can stain clothes

[@Astropheminist]

So while I get gross on the outside from sweating during exercise, my insides get more sanitized bc of lactic acid? 🤔

[@Axel-xs5cb]

what about the really short wavelength light, such as disinfectant by irradiation?

[@charleshines2142]

That phenol formaldehyde resin is Bakelite and it is a hard and durable plastic that was used for wall electrical sockets and a variety of other things. If you lived in an older house and plugged things in the front of that socket that everyone sees may have been made from that. I think it was an accidental discovery while doctors were trying different kinds of anesthesia. Of course that would be in the earlier years when we used to use dangerous compounds that we now would not use for that same purpose again .

[@davidestabrook5367]

I really missed seeing benzyl alcohol on this list. I'm going to start using it for compounding my IV depression treatment. So any info about it would be helpful.

[@_Pilots]

As a chemistry lover, this video is amazing!

[@alext6933]

Epclusa and vosevi are my fav anti virals. Yes I have worked with needles before.😊😊

[@satelliteexile2089]

I was just chilling, listening to some chemistry, and then BAM, PONY.

[@vevenaneathna]

for isoprop its the drying action that disenfects but going over 70% makes it kill less things like protiens of virus'. kind of hard for most people to understand

[@spychain]

I work as an IV Pharmacy Technician and standard guidelines at almost every place I've worked that has a clean room is use a combination of Preempt (4.25% Hydrogen Peroxide) for a dwell of 5 minutes and then deactivate and follow up with 70% isopropyl alcohol for every day of the week except Friday. Fridays, we break out Peridox (24% Hydrogen Peroxide w/ 1.2% Peroxyacetic Acid) for a 5 minute dwell time with the same 70% isopropyl alcohol follow-up afterwards. With proper technique, agar plate tests come back with

[@Xolvi9]

Of all the places i didnt expect to hear S3RL.

[@jonsays3762]

Rocal is what we use in the lab for some applications; bleach and ethanol are also pretty excellent, depending.

[@oxylepy2]

There are some bases you can mix bleach with safely. Borax and baking/washing soda are the only ones I know of. I've seen some weird things online about not mixing them but waaaay more saying its safe. Chlorohexadine is one of my favorite things EVER. Dirt cheap for cleaning enclosures and the dillution makes it last forever.

[@kaliumthiocyanat6211]

Okay I really love the mic ad :D

[@beep8131]

i find clorhexidine being "low skin irritaion" hilarious, as im allergic to it and my skins reaction to it is eczema. wish it worked for me, i have to make sure every time theyre taking blood they dont use it to clean my skin or that one pink, foamy hand sanitizer

[@S3lkie-Gutz]

Same omg, every time the lab techs swab my arm with it I get carpet burn like rashes and hives in the area immediately. I'm also deathly afraid of needles so between the immediate allergic reaction and the crippling phobia I want to throw up

[@chubbyadler3276]

I remember seeing in some studies that povidone iodine is less effective than isopropanol at killing pathogens. Also, my doctor uses isopropanol for needlework in his office.

[@ianthemechanical829]

We actually used ozone for my old house when we first moved into my old house, A smoker lived there and I have to say it made a huge difference. I remember walking in and smelling the pungent smell of ozone when walking in, what do I describe it as? kinda like a electronic smell with chlorine in it. Then we used it for the house we were moving out of, I was kinda sad since I liked the smell of that house (yes I am weird) but we weren’t living there anymore anyways. So we ran it in my now empty brothers room and lets say opening the closet the smell was very strong. At least the house was disinfected so people could move in. Lets just say that our new at the time house never smelled like smoke again. Infact these ozone machines started my whole interest in chemistry, which I still love to this day. I plan to smell ozone again (safely) because I find it pleasant.

[@nightchicken3517]

Dude best ad for a mic ive seen

[@moonman2183]

7:10 Was not expecting a sudden reference to the infamous "jar". Wow.