A gallon of bleach with 5.25% sodium hypochlorite contains how much chlorine?

To determine how much chlorine is in a gallon of bleach containing 5.25% sodium hypochlorite, it’s essential to understand the composition of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) itself. Sodium hypochlorite is composed of sodium, oxygen, and chlorine, and the percentage indicates how much of the solution is sodium hypochlorite.

First, you start by calculating the total amount of sodium hypochlorite in one gallon (which is equivalent to about 8.34 pounds, since one gallon of water weighs approximately 8.34 pounds).

Given that the bleach solution is 5.25% sodium hypochlorite, you calculate the weight of the sodium hypochlorite in the gallon:

0.0525 (5.25% as a decimal) multiplied by 8.34 pounds gives approximately 0.438 pounds (which can be rounded to 0.44 pounds).

Next, you look at the composition of sodium hypochlorite. In sodium hypochlorite, the molecular weight of chlorine is about 35.453 g/mol. Sodium hypochlorite has one chlorine atom in its molecular formula, meaning the percentage of chlorine in sodium hypochlorite directly