How to Make Hypo/Jik Bleach

Bleach is a laundry agent that is used for whitening clothes especially white, for stain removal and can be used as  disinfectant in toilets and bathrooms. Bleach can also be used for designing shirts to our desire. This is done by applying bleach at specific areas and then rinsing it with water Click here to learn more. Bleach can also be used as a cure for nail and toes fungi click here to learn more. Bleach has different brand names such as Jik and Hypo etc.   


It is no news that  you can produce bleach at the comfort of your home without any stress (do it yourself). You are hereby advised to put on gloves, a lab coat, goggles and shoes in case of any accident. Some of the chemicals   such as caustic soda and chlorine should be handled with care because of its corrosiveness. Vinegar should always be kept during preparation in case chemical touches your skin, quickly apply vinegar on the affected part.

There are two types of  bleach; oxygen bleach and chlorine bleach. Oxygen bleach is mostly used in fabrics and can be used for any other colour. Chlorine bleach is meant for removing stains and odour in white clothes only. If chlorine bleach is used on other colour of clothes, there's going to be a problem except it is purposefully used for designing. The type of bleach in this post is chlorine bleach.

We also have natural bleaching agents such as lemon and lime.Lemon juice and limes juice can be used to remove stains, whiten clothes especially whites. Their  juice is turned into a bucket of water and clothes added and allowed to sit for several minutes to hours like any other bleach. They are quite mild when compared to chlorine bleach.  Please do not mix different types of bleach when washing.

Below are the few simple steps in  producing a homemade bleach. 

Materials
½ kg (500g) of sodium hypochloride
¼ kg (250g) of caustic soda½ kg 
(500g) of soda ash
10g of alum
Distilled or deionised water. (10 litres)
Put on protective clothes, goggle, face mask, and also put on shoe

Procedure

• Turn 10 litres of water   into a bucket
• Pour chlorine  into the same bucket and stir until it has completely dissolved. 
• Then add 250g of caustic soda and stir, followed by the addition of  500g of soda ash. Finally, add 10g of ground alum is  into the mixture.  
• Allow to stand for 24hours and then filtered.
• Turn the filtrate in a bottle or container for use. 
• The measurement above is for preparing 10 litres of Bleach.If the bleach is too harsh, simply dilute with water. 

Functions of the materials used.

• Sodium hypochlorite is a compound used to bleach, disinfects, remove odor. It is used in large scale for the purification of water.
• Caustic soda mostly found in soap products is dirt remover
• Soda ash helps to soften water, thereby reducing the surface tension of water.
• Alum is used to make the particles in the bleach  settle at the bottom of the container
• Water is a solvent used to dissolve all the materials.

Bottling: It is very essential that you put bleach on a very strong plastic bottles. I had once put bleach on a plastic bottle and the next day it burst the bottle.