Whoa, you’re right… I was assuming the ammonia/bleach reaction was an acid-base neutralization, but I guess it’s just oxidation/reduction. Thank Og (are we not allowed to use “god”?) that the AP chemistry test is already over. Or would I have realized that back then?
Uh oh. Vinegar is my primary cat-urine-odour suppressant mechanism. What am I doing to myself?
Probably nothing. The vinegar/ammonia reaction is not as strong as the bleach/ammonia.
I checked into some of my non-toxic house books to see what they have to say about cat litter boxes. The recommendations:
Do not use a plastic pan. Use a metal one. They recommended buying a roasting pan from the supermarket. I realize a the image of a cat in a roasting pan will please a lot of non-cat people. But I digress.
Buy a cat litter without crystalline silcia in it. That stuff is harmful to your lungs. Litter Green is the best Supermarket Choice.
Put a layer of baking soda in the pan to absorb pee and oders. Then only use about 1/2 inch of cat litter, and discard the all the litter every day.
Only use soap and water to clean the pan, and rinse it very, very well.
FWIW, I don’t use vinegar in the catbox; I use it for laundering peed-on articles. It works like a charm, but you have to use huge quantities of it.
the use of the word “god” is perfectly acceptable here. Og is kind of a SDMB in-joke. It resulted from a typo in a religous debate. It then expanded into a character named Og, a caveman god who likes to smash and smite things. All in good fun.
ocampo, if you’re still checking this thread (or any other chemists)
I got a notice from my local water company that come fall, they’ll be switching from using chlorine to using chloramine. If I hadn’t read this thread that very day, I wouldn’t have given it much thought. But now I’m wondering if you could say a bit more about chloramine in the water.
Specifically, do common household water filters (activated carbon, I think) work to filter out chloramine? The brochure said “see inside for details” but didn’t give any details other than “hospitals and facilities that perform dialysis have already been told what to do to filter out chloramine” and “chloramine can’t enter the bloodstream through the digestive tract”.
What must I do to maintain purity of essence?
dre2xl You can stop panicking. The effects of chloramines are acute (they dont last long). The only thing I would be concerned about is chemical pneumonia resulting from the exposure. IANAD, IAAC - see a doctor if you start getting chesty. Since you first posted 4 days ago if nothing yet, you are prob. OK.
btw - chloramines, dichloramines, HCl and possibly nitrogen trichloride would be produced in rxn of bleach and ammonia. Not sure about chlorine gas though. I suppose thats what the BBC link had, but its broken.
Chloramines are produced via reaction of chlorine with ammonia, or organic nitrogen compounds. These are serious respiratory/eye irritants.
Chloramines give rise to the ‘smell of chlorine’ you get in pools. Here it is produced when the HOCl, hypochlorous acid, from the ‘chlorine’ reacts with ammonia-like compounds.
panamajackDont worry about the chloramine in the drinking water. It is another way of delivering chlorine. It has more available
chlorine than Cl2 and it is less prone to evaporation. Apparently its not to good if you have fish.
Activated carbon should do a good job of filtering out the chloramines. But it wouldnt be worth it, the chloramine is present in very low conc. It is not a problem. Talk to your water authority. Come to think of it, it may be better than HOCl, which may produce halomethanes in the water. I remember reading a while ago about chloroform being concentrated in hot showers.
What are the products of the reaction of ammonia and vinegar?
From a vague memory of my cegep chemistry classes, I’m going to suppose that it’s ammonium acetate. Is this right? If so, it appears to be a mild irritant - would this be true even from the mixture of 5% vinegar and whatever-proportion-is-in-dried-up-old-cat-pee ammonia?
Yep. ammonium acetate
Look up the equilibrium constant for this weak acid/weak base reaction and do the calculation. If it is large, the rxn would proceed mostly to the right.
Ammonium acetate is not very toxic. It is a very mild irritant.