Does it completely dissolve them, poison them or just render them inert?
In: 5
Chlorine when dissolved makes a pretty strong base, this means it really wants to steal hydrogens from anywhere it can get them. Anything alive has a lot of hydrogen in it, so it slowly steals hydrogens from it.
It does this to us humans too, but our skin is a little more resistant to this and can take a bit more damage before it becomes problematic, and in case you swallow it it’s also still in low enough concentrations that it’s not gonna do much damage. Bacteria on the other hand has a higher surface area to volume ratio and has a very thin outer membrane to protect itself so it dies relatively quickly (as soon as you cut a bacterial membrane it’s guts spill out and it’s dead), the low concentrations to be safe for us does mean it takes a bit of time but not too much.
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