If chlorine bleach is used to clean something but it is not rinsed off
afterwards then does the chlorine evaporate or are any nasty residuals
left behind?

Bleach chemistry is a bit complicated with many different species
existing in pH-dependent equilibria. Hypochlorite (OCl-) is not very
stable, particularly exposed to light, and in aqueous solution exists
in equilibrium with hypochlorous acid, HOCl, a weak acid.
Hypochlorite decomposes into chlorine gas, oxygen, and sodium chlorate
and sodium chloride, which will leave a solid residue. The OCl-
itself, and/or chlorine radicals that it decomposes to before they
combine to form Cl2, are primarily responsible for the bleach action.
Sodium chlorate is also an oxidizing agent (and an explosive)
supposedly used to bleach paper and wood pulp, but I doubt it would be
as effective as hypochlorite. I doubt a bit of bleach residue readily
explodes though, or else laundromats would all be going off.

Mitchell Jones wrote:

In article <n9NZh.3376$HX7.951@newssvr19.news.prodigy.net>,
"Bruce W.1" <sorry@noDirectEmail.com> wrote:


***{Try sci.chem. I added it to the newsgroups line of this reply.
--MJ}***


***{After the surface is dry there will be some residuals. Whether you
ought to worry depends on details you did not supply. Do you plan to
lick off the surface with your tongue, for example? If not, then I
probably wouldn't worry about it. Environmental nut jobs, of course,
will advise you to fence off everything within a ten mile radius and bar
human use unto the thousandth generation, but I wouldn't take them very
seriously. (Their ban on DDT, for example, has already killed roughly 50
million children, and another is added to the total every 11 seconds.
Given that, how good can their advice be?)

For specifics about chlorine bleach, do a web search on "sodium
hypochlorite."

--Mitchell Jones}***


*****************************************************************
If I seem to be ignoring you, consider the possibility
that you are in my killfile. --MJ

========================================================

The context is household cleaning. And my concern is for clothing. If
after the surfaces are dry does any concentrated bleach remain? If so
then any clothing that touched the surface would wind-up with a bleached
spot. Or does all of the bleaching power evaporate?

Thanks again.

The context is household cleaning. And my concern is for clothing. If
after the surfaces are dry does any concentrated bleach remain? If so
then any clothing that touched the surface would wind-up with a bleached
spot.

Or does all of the bleaching power evaporate?