how chlorine gas affects the human body and how it is used to treat water without being poisonous to people.
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Chlorine works by way of a chemical reaction called oxidation, where electrons are taken from a compound by the oxidizer. Changing the electron configuration of an atom or compound changes is chemical properties. On a microscopic level, this is really bad. The parts of microbes that function to keep them alive are going to have a hard time doing what they do when their chemical properties have been changed. This happens to some of your cells too when you’re exposed to chlorine but in the case of chlorinated water, it’s a very small amount relative to all the cells in your body and the chlorine is only going to interact with a very small (relative) number of your cells, which are all constantly being replaced anyway since we’re taking about a compound that only touches your skin or digestive tract.
Chlorine is also volatile, meaning it doesn’t like to stick around long. Even if the water you drink is pretty heavily chlorinated, the chlorine is gone from the water pretty quickly. If you want to try an experiment and you have a pool or chlorinated tap water, take a cup of the stuff and smell it or taste it to confirm the chlorine level. Leave the cup out in a warm room to sort of stimulate body temperature. After a couple hours, smell or taste it again. You’ll find the chlorine level has significantly reduced. Part of the reason water is chlorinated more heavily than it needs to be to be effective is that it is so volatile that it loses enough to be ineffective pretty quickly.
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