Does Bleach and Vinegar MIX? Here’s What We Found Out

The quick answer to this question is NO! But read on to get the complete details on why it’s a no.

Bleach can be an addictive thing as it can seem like the ultimate answer to all your cleaning requirements. It is quite effective and efficient at a lot of things and its affordability and easy availability are just the cherries on top of what might appear to be a really great sundae.

However, it has one major flaw and that is the fact that it can lose its efficacy with time. It can also not be strong enough for certain requirements and that is when you might start looking for ways to make bleach stronger.

One possible answer you might come across would be to mix vinegar with bleach to increase its potency.

Vinegar is another substance that is cheap and easily available and it might seem like the perfect solution but somewhere you might have the question in the back of your mind regarding the safety of this home chemistry and that is what we will clarify today.

 

Does vinegar make bleach better?

This entire discussion would be moot if vinegar didn’t work in the first place. The simple answer is that vinegar does make the bleach a better disinfectant.

To understand why that is you need to first understand why bleach is a good disinfectant in the first place. It is a very strong oxidizing agent which means that it reacts with most compounds quite easily.

This is devastating for microbes and that is why they cannot survive when bleach is used. So, if you wanted to make the bleach a bit more effective then all you would need to do is increase its oxidizing capability and that is exactly what vinegar does.

It reacts with bleach to make Hypochlorous acid which is even more adept at oxidizing stuff and thus the resulting combination of bleach and vinegar becomes a better disinfectant.

 

Why you should never mix bleach and vinegar though?

This might seem like the perfect recipe. Combining two affordable chemicals and creating something even more powerful is like the ultimate solution to most cleaning problems but this combo does come with a dangerous caveat.

One of the chemicals that is produced as a result of mixing vinegar and bleach is chlorine gas. Chlorine is a dangerous gas and in sufficient quantities, it can even be fatal.

Another issue here is that the reaction between vinegar and bleach is quite quick and rapid and things can go from bad to worse very quickly and it can cause a lot of damage before you even realize that something is wrong.

The biggest reason why you shouldn’t do this is that there are so many alternatives to mixing this deadly cocktail that it is just not worth the risk.

 

What can you do if you need a stronger disinfectant?

If you are driven to use bleach then you can look for a concentrated bleach solution. It is not as easily available as regular bleach but not rare either.

You can also opt for one of the myriad disinfectants that are just as strong if not stronger. They can be a bit more expensive but they are so much safer and easier to use.

So, leave all the chemistry to the professionals and go for products that are already designed to do what you want instead of trying to manufacture your own stuff at the possible cost of your health and life.