Name: Shannon

Country: USA

Message: HI there!! I found your site as I am asthmatic to bleach and am hunting for information online...I'm very badly asthmatic to it...my floors were scrubbed with ajax with bleach...tile floors...and I tried to neutralize them with vinegar and then followed up with lemon juice...I now see that your site says it creates a bad gas...do you think this also applies to scrubbing floors or just dyeing fabric...I am going to try your hydrogen peroxide...do you think it will help with tile floors? Thank you for any information you have to offer...I'm just desperate to get rid of this problem..thank you again so much :  ) 

It looks as if you don't need to worry about this at all. Your situation is much less worrisome than if you had been combining liquid bleach with vinegar.

I looked up a couple of MSDS pages for Ajax Powder Cleanser with Bleach. (Note that Ajax Oxygen Bleach Powder Cleanser is an entirely different product, which does not contain any chlorine-based products and thus does not require any neutralization of chlorine.) Interestingly, trichlorocyanuric acid, or TCCA, which is the bleach contained in this cleanser, is present at such a low concentration that it is not even mentioned in MSDS safety pages for the product. (See, for example  Ohio State's MSDS, or the National Library of Medicine's Household Products Database entry.) Apparently, the bleach content is not considered significant enough to be a health concern. The ingredients of Ajax Powder Cleanser with Bleach are listed by the manufacturer as calcium carbonate (used primarily as a mild abrasive), sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (a common detergent), and trichlorocyanuric acid as a bleach source, plus fragrance and dye. MSDSs are required to include all hazardous chemicals that are found in a product in quantities of 1% or greater, or 0.1% or greater in the case of carcinogens.

The reason why I don't recommend putting an acid on top of hypochlorite (which is the active ingredient in liquid household bleach) is that it results in the formation of hypochlorous acid, and can also, if the pH is low enough, produce dangerous chlorine gas. Chlorine gas is a major hazard with a strong acid, such as acid-based toilet cleaners, or the phosphoric acid cleaners used by some janitorial services; chlorine gas is known to be capable of killing or causing permanent lung damage, but is less likely to be produced in significant quantities when used with a mild acid such as vinegar. However, even a mild acid reacts with hypochlorite bleach to produce hypochlorous acid. Hypochlorous acid is highly damaging to textiles, so it makes no sense to ever use even a mild acid, such as vinegar, to neutralize hypochlorite bleach on fabric. 

For neutralizing significant quantities of hypochlorite bleach, using hydrogen peroxide, or, for those who are not sensitive to sulfites, using Anti-Chlor (sodium metabisulfite) or Bleach Stop (sodium thiosulfate), are both safer for the user, and kinder to the textile fibers on which bleach is being neutralized. (See "How can I neutralize the damaging effects of chlorine bleach?".) Flooring is probably less sensitive to the damaging effects of hypochlorous acid than textile fibers are, but the surfaces of some flooring materials could be susceptible.

As an asthmatic, you need to be particularly careful to avoid the production of chlorine gas (from mixing liquid household bleach with a strong acid, or with a large amount of a weak acid). You must also, of course, avoid applying anything containing ammonia on top of bleach, because the chloramine gas produced is extremely dangerous, even to people who have previously had no lung problems at all. A third concern for many asthmatics is sensitivity to sulfites, including Anti-Chlor and Bleach Stop. This is why hydrogen peroxide is the safest choice for an asthmatic to use to neutralize hypochlorite-containing bleach.

In any case, there appears to be no reason to worry about your situation. The concentration of TCCA in Ajax Powder Cleanser with Bleach is very low, and I am not sure whether even strong concentrations of TCCA are capable of producing dangerous gases when mixed with acid; however, even if it were able to produce dangerous gases when mixed with vinegar, the gas would have formed quickly and then dissipated, given adequate ventilation, so there can be no remaining hazard for you.

Just last week, someone in my household used diluted liquid hypochlorite bleach on ceramic tile as a mold-remover, and then applied vinegar to the shower where he'd used the bleach. I could not approve of his choice, and yet I must admit that the smell of chlorine was, in fact, much reduced. The residual odor was much less irritating to my lungs. Fortunately, I was not present when the vinegar was applied to the bleached surfaces, and tile is not damaged as easily by hypochlorous acid as fabrics or yarns are.

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