Looking at this article, there’s only millimolar concentration of ammonia in feline urine (mean 118mM, range 16.9-292 mM). I’d be very surprised if anyone was able to generate significant quantities of chlorine gas by mixing bleach with cat urine.
It actually makes sense; if cat urine contained ammonia the smell would be gone once you washed your cat’s impromptu litterbox, since ammonia is both volatile and highly soluble. And yet it keeps stinking - this hints that there’s something else there producing that ammonia by decomposition. (Probably proteins. Cats eat a lot more protein than we do.)
Note: chlorine gas is the one that leaks from an open bleach bottle, and gives it a distinctive smell. The ones created by reacting bleach with ammonia are chloramines, considerably more poisonous.
Isn’t chemistry all a matter of scale though? I admit it’s not my field
I mean, if the cat pees on the rug and you clean it up right away, that’s probably not a big deal. I imagine it’s a different story if you’re cleaning out a hoarder’s cat colony in a poorly ventilated area and don’t dilute the bleach because you wanted something stronger
Yes, from my personal experience. We mop up dog pee in the house all the time with hot water and a splash of bleach and it’s totally fine. It bubbles a little when you rinse the mop in the bucket and you can definitely smell the reaction occurring.
However, I also once cleaned the back patio of my old apartment of a summer’s worth of dog pee on concrete with about a gallon of straight bleach and had to wait for it to air out for about 20 minutes because it was a definite chemical hazard. As in, eyes burning, and difficult to breathe. I started pre-rinsing with the hose to dilute everything prior after that.
Looking at this article, there’s only millimolar concentration of ammonia in feline urine (mean 118mM, range 16.9-292 mM). I’d be very surprised if anyone was able to generate significant quantities of chlorine gas by mixing bleach with cat urine.
Thanks for sharing this data - it’s great.
It actually makes sense; if cat urine contained ammonia the smell would be gone once you washed your cat’s impromptu litterbox, since ammonia is both volatile and highly soluble. And yet it keeps stinking - this hints that there’s something else there producing that ammonia by decomposition. (Probably proteins. Cats eat a lot more protein than we do.)
Note: chlorine gas is the one that leaks from an open bleach bottle, and gives it a distinctive smell. The ones created by reacting bleach with ammonia are chloramines, considerably more poisonous.
Isn’t chemistry all a matter of scale though? I admit it’s not my field
I mean, if the cat pees on the rug and you clean it up right away, that’s probably not a big deal. I imagine it’s a different story if you’re cleaning out a hoarder’s cat colony in a poorly ventilated area and don’t dilute the bleach because you wanted something stronger
Yes, from my personal experience. We mop up dog pee in the house all the time with hot water and a splash of bleach and it’s totally fine. It bubbles a little when you rinse the mop in the bucket and you can definitely smell the reaction occurring.
However, I also once cleaned the back patio of my old apartment of a summer’s worth of dog pee on concrete with about a gallon of straight bleach and had to wait for it to air out for about 20 minutes because it was a definite chemical hazard. As in, eyes burning, and difficult to breathe. I started pre-rinsing with the hose to dilute everything prior after that.
So you’re saying there’s a chance.