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
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
So you’re saying there’s a chance.