“There are two types of cleaning products: bleach and things that should never be mixed with bleach”. To what extent is this true? And why?

Question

u/shaneoffood posted this comment in a discussion about unscented laundry detergents.

I’m familiar with the fact that ammonia and bleach creating something like chlorine gas, and I get that mixing different elements can cause them to react.

But is the original comment a good rule of thumb? Are there exceptions? And why do they make “the best” cleaning products?

In: 491

Answer 1

Pretty true. Bleach is Sodium hypochlorite. It’s a highly reactive chlorine compound (which is part of why it’s so good at killing microbes and breaking down dye molecules).

It’ll react with practically anything, and a lot of those reactions produce some kind of gaseous chlorine compound. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that “gaseous chlorine compound” is virtually guaranteed to be bad news.