Hydrogen Peroxide

In my last post we talked about two of the most popular household green cleaning agents: baking soda and vinegar. Today I want to talk a little about another popular cleaner that you might have at home. Hydrogen peroxide's formula looks a lot like the formula for water. Water is H₂O and hydrogen peroxide is H₂O₂. That means that water has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom while hydrogen peroxide has two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms. In fact, when two hydrogen peroxide molecules breaks down they turn into two water molecules and one oxygen molecule. The formula looks like this: 2 H₂O₂ → 2 H₂O + O_2. 

You can't get more environmentally friendly than water and oxygen. But that does not necessarily mean that hydrogen peroxide is safe. In fact, before it breaks down it can be quite harmful. It is an oxidizing and bleaching agent. Hydrogen peroxide is a stronger oxidizer than chlorine.

If you've ever bought non-chlorine bleach to do your laundry then you have probably used hydrogen peroxide as a cleaning agent. In most grocery stores you can buy hydrogen peroxide in that familiar brown bottle with the white cap. Normally you will find it with just 3% hydrogen peroxide. But if you look around you can find it in 12% solution (Hydrogen Peroxide 12% 16 Ounces) or even 30% (Hydrogen Peroxide 30% (ACS) [ 1 Ea.]) or more.

The normal bottle of 3% is often recommended as a mouthwash or you can buy it formulated and marketed as a mouthwash (Mouthwash-Hydrogen Peroxide - 16 oz. - Liquid). I would recommend that you never use a solution of more than 3% as a mouthwash or for washing your teeth. You can make a toothpaste out of it if you mix it with baking soda to make a paste. It apparently works as a teeth whitener. I would recommend, however, that you also brush with a toothpaste with floride in it after you use the hydrogen peroxide. This is because hydrogen peroxide's oxidizing process can weaken the enamel on your teeth. Fluorine has just the opposite chemical effect. You can read more about this in the Wikipedia article Oxidizing agent.

There's a nice web site that talks extensively about using hydrogen peroxide as a cleaner. Amazingly enough, it's called http://www.using-hydrogen-peroxide.com/. You can get a lot more information from them than I am going to cover in this post. For that matter, you can do your own Google search and find a number of articles on it. The main reason I want to address post my own article on it is to point out that a hydrogen peroxide based cleaner is what I use for most of my own cleaning. I use a professional concentrated cleaner called Clean By Peroxy. I buy mine at a janitorial supply in Chattanooga called Advanced Paper Company, but you can order it over the internet at places like Green Chemical Solutions. It seems expensive but it's highly concentrated, so a little goes a long way. Clean By Peroxy is Green Seal certified.

But there are also plenty of other hydrogen peroxide based cleaners that you can probably get at your local grocery store or hardware store. You can usually spot them because they will have the word OXY in the name somewhere. Or you can just stick with that bottle of hydrogen peroxide antiseptic in your bathroom.

Since hydrogen peroxide is a bleaching agent you can use it for whitening and brightening most of the same things you might use bleach for. You can use it as a general cleanser for your kitchen, it can get stains out of carpets or off floors or out of your clothes. Of couse, you will always want to check it first on an inconspicuous spot to make sure the item you are applying it to will not be discolored by the hydrogen peroxide.

The only environmental reservation I have about hydrogen peroxide is in its manufacture. I'm not sure if the process of making it has any harmful environmental impact. If I find out more about this I'll give you an update. Or if anyone who reads this article knows more about the issue please let me know.